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WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 
AS A NATION. 



AND 



THE NEW ERA IN 
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 



4^' 



By freeman o. willey. 



. 

/ f 
\ f YS~J &*~f) 

1883- 
GEO. C. HACKSTAFF, Publisher, 

ST. LOUIS, MO. 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1882, by 

Freeman O. Willey, in the office of the Librarian 

of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



DEDICATION. 



If, through the influence of this book, one 
nobler thought wings its way to a human soul, 
or one brighter hope lightens the step of toil, 
let a' large share of the praise be bestowed upon 
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Daniel 
Webster, Abraham Lincoln and Horace 
Greeley, the spirit of whose political speeches 
and writings, has done so much to mould the 
opinions and strengthen the purpose of the 
writer. 

To the sacred memory and broad statesman- 
ship of these grand and illustrious men, this 
volume is gratefully dedicated 

By the Author. 



PREFACE. 



In a small city, in Minnesota, in the year 1876, 
my attention was first called to the question, 
which forms the subject of these lectures. I had 
just taken the stand to deliver a speech, in the 
interest of Rutherford B. Hayes, for the presi- 
dency, when an old gentleman came forward 
from the audience, and presented me with some 
questions in writing. They were questions, 
having direct reference to economic principles, 
and American financial legislation. Like most 
public speakers of that day, my knowledge of 
those subjects was confined to what could be 
gathered from newspapers and periodicals, which 
are paid to deceive the people, and consequently, 
I knew very little about the matter. I had the 
frankness to confess it however, and declined to 
answer, on the ground that I did not understand' 
the subject, to which his questions referred. 
The old man bowed gracefully, retired to his 
seat, and listened attentively. In the course of 
my speech, I assailed, with considerable energy, 



11 PREFACE. 

as I believed I ought, those who were finding 
fault with our financial legislation, or w r ere 
intimating that schemes were in embryo, to 
impoverish the people, and centralize the pow- 
ers of this government, in the interest of the 
monied class. Some months later, the old gen- 
tleman came to me, and reminded me of the 
questions which had been asked me, on the occa- 
sion above referred to ; and, after acknowledging 
himself to be their author, spoke substantially 
as follows : 

" Mr. Willey, when those questions were pre- 
sented to you, I admired your frankness. You 
knew nothing about the subject to which they 
referred, and you said so. I have put those 
same questions to several prominent speakers. 
Some of them did not understand the subject, 
but did not have the frankness to confess their 
ignorance. Others did understand, but in 
answering, would lie outright. Now 7 , sir, 
encouraged by your frankness, I have come to 
ask vou to listen to some facts and arguments, 
which I have to present. For I know that our 
people are being wronged out of their hard 
earnings, in a way they do not understand ;(the 
wealth of the nation is being concentrated in 
the hands of a few; the country is on the flying 

( train to ruin; and we have none too much time 

'4:0 save it." 



PREFACE. Ill 

I listened, for considerable time to statements 
and arguments, which, at the time, seemed 
impossible to be founded in fact, but which, 
if true, were thunderbolts. 

I parted with the old man, having promised 
him that I would study the subject. I did study 
the subject, and it opened a new world of 
thought to me. I found his statement of facts 
to be true, and his arguments as irresistable as 
the torrent of Niagara? " 

Now, my purpose is to make others under- 
stand those startling truths, and feel their mighty 
force. In order to do this, I have proceeded, by 
methods peculiarly my own. 

The reader will observe, that I do not charge 
all the political sins to any one party. Neither 
do I ask him to vote with any particular politi- 
cal organization. But I do ask him to study, 
and understand, certain economic principles, 
which underlie our structure of government, 
and, upon which our prosperity as a people, and 
our continued existence as a Republic, depends. 
I have presented my thoughts and arguments, 
in the form of lectures rather than in that of an 
essay, because it allows me a wider latitude in 
the use of language. My desire has been to 
make myself understood, by the masses; and to 
that end, I have used common phraseology, and 



IV PREFACE. 

short words, and studied to make my illustra- 
tions simple and plain. 

There is something radically wrong some- 
where, when those who work most get least, and 
those who work least get most. This fact forces 
itself home, to every thoughtful mind. 

That there is more, in this volume, calculated 
to show the people where that wrong is, than is 
contained in any other book yet written on the 
subject, I verily believe. I therefore send it 
forth in the hope that it may help to arouse the 
nation to a sense of the danger that environs it, 
lest it slumber past the hour when salvation is 
possible. 

F. O. WlLLEY. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 



PAGK 

Development of the Subject 7 

The ground principle of Slavery 9 

The Tress subsidized 12 

Mr. Windom's testimony 12 

Rich Americans abroad 16 

Park Goodwin's testimony 16 

Designs of the Capitalists 17 

Monarchy 17 

Mr. Lincoln's testimony 18 

Whitelaw Read's testimony 21 

Rev. Dr. Bellows' and Lord Napier's testimony 21 

Circumstantial evidence 24 

Horace Greeley's speech in London 24 

Silence of the London Times 24 

The London Times on labor 26 

Lord Huskinson says that 'abor must be kept down 28 



LECTURE II. 



Silver demonetized in the United States through the influence 

of European capitalists 8R 

Ernest Seyd bribes Congress 8U 

Testimony of the Banker's Magazine 40 

Base motives for demonitizing silver 41 

British statesmanship 46 

(Jen. Grant oil silver 4S 

Grant's letter to Judge Strong 4£ 

New York Tribune approves the despotism of monopoly 54 

New York Times on tenant farming 56 

Senator Sharon advocates a strong centralized government 61 

Sharon declares the wealth of the Nation shall control it (>:> 

First steps taken toward despotism , 66 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE III. 

PAGE 

Beecher's happy family 71 

New York World on labor and liberty 76 

The Senate investigating committee 79 

The condition of the laborers in Rhode Island 84 

Col. Moran's case 85 

Hon. Thomas Davis' case 86 

Daniel Donovan's case 86 

The Senate Committee decline to recommend legislation for 

the relief of the oppressed , 91 

LECTURE IV. 

Farmer's business boom 99 

Price of farm produce from 1865 to 1869 inclusive, compared 

with the prices of 1880 100 

New York Times sees the consequences 104 

Richmond (Ya.) State and Boston Herald endorse bulldozing.. 106 
President Arthur recommends a monarchial system of civil 

service 109 

Ingersoll's delusive speech on state lines 117 



LECTURE V. 

Ingersoll reviewed ? . 124 

Fifteenth amendment 133 

The Louisiana count 135 

The Supreme Court decides that the government cannot cross 

state lines to protect voters 140 

Number of nren employed in the manufacturing business in 

eight states 142 

Ingersoll on centralization 145 

Shall the t vrant come 149 



LECTURE VI. 

Railroad corporations 152 

Their great achievements 153 

Avarice the moving principle 156 

United States Senate committee on the dangers of the unre- 
stricted power of railroad corporations 158 

Railroad corporations can reduce the value of property many 

hundreds of millions by a single stroke of the pen 160 

The way the railroads lower the value of property 161 

Standard Oil Company 165 

The railroads threatening the Supreme Court 168 

The vast sweep of territory in possession of railroads 178 

Our duty in the matter ^ 182 



CONTENTS. HI 



LECTUKE VII. 



PAGE 

Scheme -.or centralizing wealth 185 

Quotation from Warwick Martin 187 

What the exception clause in the greenback had to clo with the 

prosperity of the nation 190 

How there came to be a premium on gold 196 

Quotation from Hon. John A . Logan 198 

Why the greenback was depreciated 204 

How the people paid the premium on gold 206 

Would the greenback have depreciated if it had been made a 

full legal tender 214 

Our demand notes in Europe 217 

The value of gold governed largely by law 219 

Our gold eagle and other coins 223 

Judge Tiffany on coining money 230 

American Cyclopaedia quoted 235 



LECTtTRE VIII. 



Paying the bonds in gold 240 

The way the capitalists loaned gold to save the nation's life. ... 242 
Testimony of Sherman and others on paying the bonds in gold 248 
What six hundred millions of dollars would do for the freedman 253 
The honest dollar 261 



LECTURE IX. 



Lowering prices , 267 

Over-product ion and extravagance 269 

Under-consumptioii 276 

Changing the price of money relative to commodities 279 

What produced the disaster of 1873 285 

The amount of contraction 287 

The way the currency was contracted 291 

Number of failures from 1865 to 1878 '-W 

Testimony of John Sherman and others pn the effects of the 

contraction policy 294 

The people handing their property over to their oppressors — 806 



IV CONTENTS. 



LECTURE X. 



PAGE 

Resumption and specie payment 321 

Can the National Banks redeem their notes 324 

Will the government redeem the greenbacks in the hands of 

the people 328 

The national banking system 385 

High bonds 343 

Solon Chases' steers and Mrs. Solon Chases' butter 344 

The power of bonds to rob the people 346 

The way the people pay the interest on bonds 351 

Taking the legal tender quality from the greenback 363 



LECTURE XL 



What shall we do 369 

The government must issue the money instead of the banks. . 370 
Can the government issue money and make it a legal tender. . 373 
Charles Sumner, Daniel Webster and others on the power of 

the government with regard to money 374 

The Supreme Court on the power of Congress over the money 

of the country 382 

Can the government issue money in time of peace 383 

Does the money power respect the constitution 386 

Is the theory that the government can issue money to the people 

new 389 

Dr. Franklin originated the theory of government money in 

this country 390 

Dr. Franklin's Essay on Money 893 



LECTURE XII. 



Artful methods by which the people have been misled with 

regard to finance 428 

The honest money league 480 

The money powers resumption 433 

The money of the world 484 

Is gold a standard of value 435 

Honest money leagues delusive statement with regard to a 

debased currency 444 

True statement of the Honest Money League 449 

Senator Howe on our standard of value 453 



CONTENTS. 



LECTUKE XIII. 

PAGK 

The remedy 358 

The people's first duty 460 

The income tax 462 

Shall we repeal the refunding laws 464 

The government should not issue bonds 467 

Crocker's bond 469 

The difference in the cost to the people of the Greenback and 

National Bank currency 473 

Horace Greeley on the National Banks 474 

Monopoly of money issue — its removal 476 

Col. Bland on what constitutes value 478 

How to make paper money exchangeable for specie 482 

The advantages that would accrue to the people from the gov- 
ernment loaning money 486 

Two systems of loaning money— Difference in the cost to the 

people 489 

Facts worthy of careful consideration 492 



LECTURE XI V. 



The Bank of England 495 

Prof. Walker on specie basis, banking, etc 499 

Prof. Walker, of Yale College, on the cause of hard times 500 

Can specie be made a safe basis for money 503 

Should specie leave the country, would it harm us 507 

The objection urged 509 

Answer to the objection 510 

The New York Tribune's testimony 510 

Admission of the New York Tribune 513 

Again 514 

The New York Tribune again 515 

The New York Tribune again 516 

Effect of contracting their loans, by tbe banks, on prices 517 

Testimony of the New York Daily Exchange 517 

The New York Mercantile Journal's testimony 517 

Testimony of the Chicago News 518 

Testimony of the Financial Chronicle 519 

The Banks and Money-loaners as despotic as the Czar of Russia 520 
Belief for the laborer , 532 



WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 
AS A NATION ! 

LECTURE I. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUBJECT. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUBJECT— THE GROUND PRINCIPLES OF 
SLAVERY— THE PRESS SUBSIDIZED— MR. WINDOM'S TESTIMONY 
—RICH AMERICANS ABROAD— PARK GOODWINS' TESTIMONY- 
DESIGNS OF THE CAPITALISTS — MONARCHY — MR. LINCOLN'S 
TESTIMONY— WHITELAW READ'S TESTIMONY— REV. DR. BEL- 
LOWS AND LORD NAPIER'S TESTIMONY — CIRCUMSTANTIAL 
EVIDENCE — HORACE GREELEY'S SPEECH IN LONDON — SILENCE 
OF THE LONDON TIMES— LABOR MUST BE KEPT DOWN— GEN. 
GRANT VISITS EUROPE— QUEEN VICTORIA'S FONDNESS FOR 
GEN. GRANT — C^ESARISM NOT REPUDIATED AT THE CHI- 
CAGO CONVENTION. 

In my judgment a more important question 
never confronted this nation than the one which 
I have selected for discussion in these lectures. 
And every passing day gathers importance, and 
every flying hour adds, and will continue to add, 
to the responsibility of those who can read the 
handwriting on the wall, till that question shall 
be asked in pleading tones by the toiling people 
who hold in their hands the destiny of this 
Republic, and who now constitute freedom's 
only breastwork. 



8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The degree of importance which may attach 
to an event in history cannot be measured by 
its immediate results, nor by the sound and 
furore with which it may be ushered in. Often 
times the most important factor in a result lies 
below the line touched by popular thought. It 
was so with the events preceding the great 
rebellion. The removal of the Missouri Com- 
promise line, the caning of Sumner, the hanging 
of John Brown, the early struggles in Kansas, 
were powerful factors in a result second in 
importance to none which has influenced the 
destinies of mankind since the morning of time, 
yet they were not comprehended by the people. 
The American people simply regarded them as 
incidents in the march of a power which loved 
slavery better than the Union, and sought simply 
to control legislation in the interest of that 
system. This is true so far as that particular 
species of slavery was concerned. But the 
thoughtful student of history, the careful 
watcher of events as they ti'anspire, he who 
can think down to the springs of human action, 
sees more. He sees in those events the legiti- 
mate fruits of avarice; for avarice was the 
foundation stone of American slavery, and 
slavery was loved, not simply because it was 
slavery, but because of the profit there was in it. 



AS A NATION. 9 

THE GROUND PRINCIPLE OF SLAVERY. 

Right here is a thought for you. If you study 
the subject and history of American slavery 
critically, you will discover that the owner of 
slaves had no pride in lording over the colored 
man; for he looked upon him as a chattel, filling 
the place designed for him in the creation; and 
from the master's standpoint nothing could add 
to the distinction which nature had made between 
the white and colored races; consequently no 
more glory could attach to the ownership of a 
large number of negroes than to the ownership 
of a large number of sheep or cattle. The 
relation of the master to his slave was simply 
that of any other business man to his possessions : 
that of property and profit. 

In a convention held in the State of Virginia 
in the year 1830, harangues against slavery were 
loudly applauded. Slavery had nearly ceased to 
be profitable; the pocket nerve of the planters 
was touched with philanthropy; and the indica- 
tions were that slavery would soon end. Then 
came a change. The invention of the cotton 
gin, and other causes, opened a new field for 
slave labor. The price of negroes advanced 
from three hundred to a thousand dollars apiece; 
avarice seized upon the slave again, renewed her 
merciless grip upon his throat, and riveted the 



I O WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

shackles closer to his limbs. He must not escape 
now; there is money in him. Are }^ou prepared 
to say, fellow-citizens, that the capitalists of the 
North would not have done the same thing 
under the same circumstance ? Why, sir, they 
immediately became aiders and abettors, and, 
as a class, never consented to the abolition of 
slavery, only as a war necessity. They never 
ashed it upon the principle of justice to the slave. 
You may trace all the events connected with 
American slavery, from the robbing of the mails 
in 1840, till the tread of armies shook the solid 
earth in 1861, and back of it all, was that 
unpitying spirit of avarice, which seeks its- 
own gratification, regardless of the misery 
entailed upon the human race. And think you 
that that spirit has not survived the emancipa- 
tion proclamation ? Why, sir, in the abolition 
of slavery avarice lost only one of its resources; 
that is all. It has since sought other fields, 
and reaped a richer harvest. It has gathered 
power to an alarming extent. It is dominant 
in the councils of the nation. It is haughty and 
domineering everywhere. It is more dangerous 
in this Republic than slavery was, because 
it is more national. It has allied itself with 
foreign capitalists to rob the American laborer 
of his hard earnings. It is unpatriotic. It 
has turned its back on American institutions. 



AS A NATION. 1 1 

and asks for a strong centralized government in 
the interests of capital and against labor. In 
short, through the intrigues of the shrewd 
leaders of the two old parties, a class of capi- 
talists, inspired by avarice, have, by falsehood 
and misrepresentation, gained possession of this 
government. They have seized the helm, and 
this glorious ship of state, which Washington 
and his compatriots launched upon the surging sea 
of man's destiny, and which outrode the hurri- 
cane of civil war, is being guided by hands whose 
purpose, if not to write another name upon her 
eschutcheon, is to change her character and 
course; yea, she already heads towards breakers, 
and the hopes of her projectors and the prospects 
of her crew are in danger of being scattered 
upon a stormy sea or buried in oppression's flood. 
Now, do not turn from nor brace yourselves 
against me, but hear me further on this sub- 
ject. I am well aware that all this has been 
done so cunningly and so noiselessly as not to 
excite your suspicion. Indeed, scarce a ripple 
has appeared upon the surface of our political 
sea; and methinks I see this question rising in 
your minds, Can the statement be true ? do such 
dangers really environ us ? 



12 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

THE PRESS SUBSIDIZED MR. WINDOM'S 

TESTIMONY. 

We have been reading the papers, and 
certainly they hint at no such thing. Very 
true; and why ? Secretary Windom gives 
you the answer, in his letter, written a few 
months ago, to the Anti-Monopoly League 
in New York, in which he says: " The 
capitalists have bought, and are buying largely 
the Associated Press, and are controlling all the 
avenues of intelligence." We have been telling 
you the same thing for years, but you would not 
believe us. Now, Republicans, it comes from 
your own Secretary of the Treasury. Will 
you still doubt ? Thus you see, farmers and 
mechanics, that, having finished a week of toil, 
you take up your metropolitan newspaper, and 
read an article on trade, commerce, finance, or 
the productive interests of the country, supposing 
it to have been written in your interest by a sin- 
cere thinker, its tone and arguments uninfluenced 
by any expectation of pecuniary reward, while 
in fact it has been dictated by your enemy, whose 
interests are the very opposite to yours, and who 
can add to his wealth by deceiving and misleading 
you. Oh, my countrymen! I wonder not that 
you have been slow to believe a fact so shocking, 
far-reaching and damning in its character and 



AS A NATION. I 3 

infmence. By controlling the avenues of intelli- 
gence, the capitalist holds the confidence of the 
heads of families with one hand, as it were, 
while he rifles their pockets with the other. He 
instills wrong ideas and dangerous prejudices into 
their minds, and they in turn hand them over 
to their children, and each succeeding generation 
comes upon the stage, innocently kissing the 
hand that smites them, while every year adds 
immensely to the abundance of the rich, and 
every day poverty becomes more widespread 
and distressing. 

Right here I have a question for Secretary 
Windom: Where have you been for the past 
fifteen years, Mr. Windom ? Has it just come 
to your knowledge that the money-power is con- 
trolling the metropolitan press of this country ? 
No, sir; you knew and felt long ago that the 
money-power was not only controlling the metro- 
politan press of the country, but the legislation 
of the country also; for you once conceived and 
attempted to execute a plan by which the pro- 
ducers of the West could move their farm 
products to the seaboard at less extortionate 
rates than they now pay. But that plan wa > 
against the interest of the railroads, and incurred 
the displeasure of the capitalists. Your bill was 
thrown under the table, with scarcely a protest 
from you. And when Mr. De La Matvr, 



14 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Congressman from Indiana, dragged that same 
bill forth from where the capitalists had hidden it, 
you were mute as a fish. Your colleagues, and 
the press which you say represents the interest of 
capital, attacked it as the silly ebullitions of a 
crazy Greenbacker. That bill was in the interest 
of the people — it was your own bill — but it was 
not popular with the capitalists, and you lacked 
the sturdy manhood to defend it. And had you 
defended it, your name would never have 
appeared in the list of the Secretaries of the 
Treasury, and at the expiration of your term in 
the Senate your seat would have been filled by 
another, and you classed among the sore-heads. 
All this you understood and feared ; for such has 
been the fate of every man who dared to 
seriously defend the rights of the people. 

But, sir, had your patriotism been stronger 
than } T our love of office, and you had warned 
your countrymen when you first knew that the 
press was misleading them, you would have 
saved many a heartache which must now be 
endured, and lightened many a burden which is 
now greviously borne. 

While I am rejoiced that Mr. Windom has 
made this confession, there is one fact in connec- 
tion with his letter not pleasing to contemplate. 
He not only waited until the people were fast 
coming to discover the dishonesty of the press 



AS A NATION. I 5 

and the danger of monopolies before he confessed 
the truth, but when he did confess it, he gave 
countenance to the anti-monopoly movement in 
New York; a movement which talks anti- 
monopoly, but has no well-defined purpose, and 
does not cover the case in controversy between 
the capitalists and the people, Who knows 
better than Mr. Windom that the power which 
has been given to corporations to receive money 
from the government at one per cent, to loan to 
this people at ten, coupled with the power to 
inflate and contract the currency, is by far the 
most gigantic and dangerous monopoly known 
to this country; and that is not even hinted at 
in the anti-monopoly movement in which Mr. 
Windom 's letter makes him conspicuous — a fact 
which renders the inference natural, if not irre- 
sistible, that he owns the trufh in this particular 
instance to divert attention from the real issue, 
and thus render the people's movement against 
the money-power as slow and difficult as possible. 
But whatever motives may have actuated Mr. 
Windom in the writing of that letter, the fact 
remains that he was in a position to know the 
truth when he wrote it, and inasmuch as the 
testimony is against himself and party, the estab- 
lished rules of evidence estop the Republican 
party from denying it; for it is the positive testi- 
mony of one whom that party placed in a position 



1 6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of the highest trust and confidence, and which 
goes far to establish the proposition that the 
apathy of the people is due to the fact that they 
are being misled by a press which is owned and 
controlled by men who make money by deceiving 
them. Is it a wonder, then, that the real condi- 
tion of the country is not well understood by 
the people ? 

With these preliminary remarks, I will proceed 
with the discussion of our question, " Whither 
are we drifting as a nation ?" 

RICH AMERICANS ABROAD- 

TESTIMONY. 

It is an old truism that " straws show which 
way the wind blows." On entering our magnifi- 
cent library in Madison, Wisconsin, a few weeks 
since, I chanced to take up a book written by 
Park Goodwin, the author of one of our best 
encyclopedias of biographical knowledge, and 
found these words, penned by him in 1856: 

" By far the larger proportion of our nomadic tribes, 
commercial men generally, having scraped up a 
rapid fortune, conceive it necessary to achieve a tour 
of Europe. Without clear or earnest republican con- 
victions, by their ridiculous aping of the extravagance 
of foreign fashions, and their loud, blatant, vulgar- 
parade of wealth, they deride, or affect to deride, the 
government of their country. Professing great admir- 



AS A NATION. I 7 

ation of the methods and doings of the monarchies, 
while in every discussion of the vital principles that 
distinguish between despotism and democracy, their 
sympathies, if not avowedly, are, at least impliedly, 
on the side of power. Oh, how bitterly have we heard 
the leaders of the great emancipation movement of 
Europe complain of this base treason of Americans, to 
whom they looked for support, but only found a mean 
and detestable affectation of aristocracy." 

The important thought in this connection is 
that, as early as 1856, wealthy Americans visit- 
ing Europe were so delighted with the methods 
and doings of the monarchies, and so strongly 
on the side of power, as to take sides against the 
friends of liberty in every discussion of the vital 
principles that distinguish between Despotism 
and Democracy. Who wonders that the friends 
of liberty in Europe complained bitterly at such 
base treason of Americans, from whom they had 
a right to expect better things! 

DESIGNS OF THE CAPITALISTS MONARCHY. 

Less than five years after those startling- 
words were penned by that thoughtful writer, 
your attention was called in another direction. 
The Southern breezes brought to your cars the 
threatenings of war. The storm was coming. 
You could see the blackness in the Southern sky. 
You could think of nothing else. You could see 



1 8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

no other danger. But, fortunately for our country 
and humanity, high on liberty's bleakest watch- 
tower there stood a noble, grand sentinel. He 
loved this people, he loved American institu- 
tions, he loved humanity. He knew the cruelty 
and treachery of unpatriotic avarice. He was 
jealous. He was determined to watch and guard 
every avenue through which an enemy could 
possibly approach the citadel of American liberty. 
And, amid the darkness and gloom of that hour, 
he saw not only the slave power, proud and defiant 
in our front with cannon turned against the breast 
of this nation, but he saw also another mighty 
enemy approaching, and noiselessly and stealthily 
investing the strongholds of American liberty: 
and he gave the alarm in words that will stir 
the hearts of generations of Americans yet unborn. 
That enemy was the money -power / that sentinel 
was the immortal Lincoln. 

mr. Lincoln's testimony. 

In his message to Congress in 1861 (see Bar- 
rett's Life of Lincoln, pp. 309, 310) Mr. Lincoln 
penned these words of deep significance and 
solemn warning: 

11 Monarchy is sometimes hinted at as a possible 
refuge from the power of the people. In my present 
position I would be' scarcely justified were I to omit 



AS A NATION. 1 9 

exercising a warning voice against returning despotism. 
There is one point to which I ask attention: it is the 
effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not 
above, labor in the structure of the government. I bid 
the laboring people beware of surrendering a power 
which they already possess, and which, when surren- 
dered, will surely be used to close the door of advance- 
ment to such as they, and fix new disabilities and 
burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost." 



Now, I have a question for you : Was Abra* 
ham Lincoln an honest man? If there are those 
who doubt it, I am not one of them; I believe 
him to have been the very soul of honor, true as 
truth itself. And he tells you that Monarchy is 
being talked of as a refuge from the power of the 
people. In this connection I have another question 
for }< T ou: Was Mr. Lincoln an alarmist? His most 
inveterate enemy will not claim that. Such was 
not his make- up / on the contrary, he possessed 
a cool, calculating courage. He did not magnify 
danger; not one, two nor ten hints would have 
alarmed him. Yet to such an extent had he 
heard Monarchy hinted at as to call for its men- 
tion in one of the most important State papers 
he ever prepared. Now, another question: Did 
Mr. Lincoln speak thoughtlessly, and without 
due deliberation? No man has ever filled the 
Presidential chair who prepared his State papers 
with such extreme care and painstaking as Abra- 



2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ham Lincoln. Every statement therein made 
can be depended upon as representing his very 
best judgment. And he says to this people, " I 
bid you beware! " Be ware of what? Mr. Lin- 
coln. Why, beware of u returning despot- 
ism!" Returning despotism? Do you see it 
coming? Yes. In what way is it coming? 
Through the u placing of capital above 

LABOR IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE GOVERN- 
MENT." And I bid you, laboring people, beware 
or the capitalists will close the door of advance- 
ment against you ; they will fix new disabilities 
and burdens upon }'ou " till all of liberty 
shall be lost." Such were the sentiments 
and such the warning of that glorious apostle of 
liberty 1861. Now, consider the character and 
motives of the man who uttered those sentiments. 
Consider the circumstances under which they 
were uttered. Consider >the opportunities his 
position gave him for knowing that which is stu- 
diously kept from the common people. Remem- 
ber, too, that the monarchial sentiment which 
alarmed Mr. Lincoln was a child in 1861; now 
it strides forth a giant. It was then a drop; 
to-day it is an ocean whose surging billows beat 
with mighty power against the bulwarks of 
American liberty. 



AS A NATION. 2 I 

WHITELAW READ'S TESTIMONY. 

In the faith that Mr. Lincoln's warning has 
deepened your interest in this discussion, I will 
introduce another witness who is neither obscure 
nor insignificant; but in order to do so I must 
refresh }^our memories a little. You will remem- 
ber that sometime in the years of 1873 or 1874 
Whitelaw Read, the present editor of the Neiv 
York Tribune, in that journal used substantially 
these words: 

" It is astonishing, yea, startling, the extent to which 
the faith prevails, in the money circles in New York* 
that we ought to have a Monarchy." 

This is certainly a very remarkable state- 
ment. It was made in Mr. Read's less lament- 
able days. It was while the shades of Horace 
Greeley rested upon him. It was before Jay 
Gould owned him, soul, body, Tribune and 
all. It was before riches had hardened his heart 
and driven patriotism from his breast. It is an 
alarming confirmation of Mr. Lincoln's fears 
expressed thirteen years before. 



DR. BELLOWS' TESTIMONY. 



I will now introduce another witness, hardly 
less prominent in American society and the world 



2 2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of letters than the one last mentioned. Accord- 
ing to the Ne-w York Sun of May 12th, 1880,* 
the Rev. Dr. Bellows, in his speech at a dinner 
of the Chamber of Commerce of that city, 
remarked that he had 

" Observed among cultivated Americans a certain 
distrust of American institutions." 

And he added that, in a conversation he had 
had with Lord Napier, the Englishman told him 
that 

" He had never met a first-class American man who 
had any confidence in the permanency of American 
institutions." 

Dr. Bellows said he told Lord Napier that he 
had never talked with the American farmers. 
You will hardly need to be told that Dr. Bellows 
is one of the ablest, as he is one of the most 
popular, divines in the United States. He has 
opportunities to learn that for which the press is 
paid to keep you in ignorance. He has a large 
circle of acquaintances, and they are of that 
class — " Cultivated Americans." And he tells 
you " that they distrust American institutions." 

Fellow citizens, are these straws? They are 
more; they are mighty arguments. Every one 

* My memorandum showing the year of this date is so blurred 
that I cannot be sure of the year. — [Ed. 



AS A NATION. 23 

emanating from Republican sources, and falling 
like a dirge upon the ear of the patriot. They 
point with unerring certainty to the solemn fact, 
that among the aristocratic classes, in this country, 
there is a deep decay of that patriotic feeling 
which characterized our wealthy citizens in the 
early days of this Republic. Need I tell you 
who has touched the hand of Lord Napier within 
the last few years? They are the leaders in the 
two great political parties now shaping the 
policy and destiny of this nation. And he tells 
you that not one of them has any confidence in 
the permanency of American institutions. Think 
a moment, I beseech you! With that spirit 
dominant in the councils of the nation, and con- 
trolling the press of the country, whither, think 
you, are we drifting as a nation! Oh, for a Lin- 
coln! I would that his voice from his starry 
home behind the battlements of heaven could 
pierce the sky, and ring in every ear and linger 
upon every heart, till this people could be awak- 
ened to a sense of the danger that threatens 
them. 

I have produced the positive evidence of three 
witnesses to prove that the ulterior purpose of 
the money-power is to change the character of 
this government, and such evidence cannot safely 
be ignored. 



24 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. 

I will now produce some circumstantial evidence 
bearing upon the same subject; for it sometimes 
happens that circumstantial evidence is just as 
powerful in establishing a fact, and even more 
so than positive evidence. Especially is this true, 
when the circumstantial is strongly corroborative 
of the positive, as in the present case. 

Here I find myself obliged to traverse a wide 
field, stopping to gather only here and there. At 
first I may appear to wander from the subject, 
but I trust the relevancy of the circumstances 
and incidents here presented, will become appar- 
ent as we proceed. 

horace greeley's speech in london, and 
silence of the london press. 

In the year 1851, Horace Greeley visited 
Europe. No man had ever wielded a stronger 
pen in the interests of human rights. A better 
representative American never trod the soil of 
any country, and a more disinterested lover of 
his kind the winds of heaven never wafted across 
the sea. He reached London just in time to 
witness the opening of the great Industrial Exhi- 
bition there. He was invited by Lord Ashburton 
to deliver an address on that occasion. After 
some coaxing, he consented. His effort has few 



AS A NATION. 25 

parallels in the records of speech. It thrilled me 
when I read it, and now I remember these noble 
words : 

"My Lords and Gentlemen, I trust that, among the 
ultimate fruits of this Exhibition, we are to witness a 
wider and deeper appreciation of the worth of labor ; 
especially those captains of industry, whose tearless vic- 
tories redden no river, and whose conquering march is 
unmarked by the tears of the widow and the cries of 
the orphan. I give to you, therefore, the health of 
Joseph Paxton, Esq., the designer of the Crystal Palace. 
Honor to him whose genius honors industry and man." 

Noble words ! It required high moral courage 
to utter them in the presence of those lords and 
dukes and crowned heads. But, mark you, 
Horace Greeley was a representative American 
and America has a gospel of her own — noble, 
true, grand! And Horace Greeley preached that 
gospel to the assembled aristocracy and monarchs 
of the despotic old world. Those words were 
encouraging to the toiling millions of Europe- 
They were thrilling with helpfulness to the lowly 
of earth. They were wise and just to all mankind. 
But what response came from those lords and 
dukes and kings? Was it a hearty Amen? 
No; they answered with contemptuous silence. 
The next morning the London Times, the mouth- 
piece of European aristocracy, made no mention 
of Mr. Greeley's speech, or of his presence, even. 



26 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Why and what has that to do with the sub- 
ject under consideration? We shall see. 

LABOR MUST BE KEPT DOWN. 

Henry C. Baird, in an article published in the 
Philadelphia Enquirer, and reproduced in the 
Irish World under date April 5, 1879, quotes the 
London Times as follows: 

"An inexhaustible supply of cheap labor has so long 
been a condition of our social system, whether in town 
or country, whether for work or pleasure, that it remains 
to be seen whether a great enhancement of labor would 
not disturb our industrial, and even our political, 
arrangements to a serious extent. Two men have been 
after one master so long, that we are not prepared for 
the day when two masters will be after one man; for it 
is not certain, either, that the masters can carry on their 
own business as well, or that the men will comport them- 
selves properly under the new regime. Commercial 
enterprise and social development require an actually 
increasing population, and also that the increase shall 
be in the most serviceable — that is, the most laborious — 
part of the population, for otherwise it would be at the 
command of capital and skill." 

Mark these strong and significant utterances: 
" Two men have been after one master so long " 
(note the word master), " an inexhaustible sup- 
ply of cheap labor has so long been a condition 
of our social system that it is not certain whether 
the masters carry on their business as well, or 



« AS A NATION. 27 

that the men will comport themselves as well, 
under the new regime." 

That is to say, that if the condition of the 
laborer is made better, he will not be so docile; 
he will be more independent. To improve the 
condition of our laboring people would be to dis- 
turb our industrial and political arrangements to 
a serious extent, contends the London Times, and 
they must not be disturbed. The masters have 
made their political and industrial arrangements 
just to suit themselves. Their industrial arrange- 
ments keep the laborer in abject poverty, while 
their political arrangements put the governing 
power into the hands of the rich. And when 
famine cries aloud for bread, hush is the word, or 
grape and canister puts an end to the murmur- 
ings of the suffering victims. 

Listen again; for I desire that you shall get the 
full meaning of this paragraph: 

" Commercial enterprise and social develop- 
ment require an increasing -population, and also 
that the increase shall be in the laborious part of 
the populatio?i, otherwise labor will not be suffi- 
ciently at the command of capital " 

What does it mean ? Why, it simply means 
that the breach between capital and labor must 
continue to widen, and that, too, by increasing 
poverty. In other words, labor must become 
more and more dependent upon capital. Does 



28 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

not that paragraph in the London Times throw 
a flood of light on the question of Mr. Greeley's 
speech ? Mr. Greeley had expressed the hope 
that the ultimate results of that exhibition would 
be a wider and deeper appreciation of the worth 
of labor, and that, according to the London 
Times, would " seriously disturb their industrial 
and political arrangements." And think you 
they (the capitalists) would permit that to go to 
the people which would lessen their chances to 
control them ? No ; no more than you would if 
you were capitalists ! And you must remember 
that the money power controls the press there, as 
ex-Secretary Windom says it does here. Now, 
listen again : The same author, Mr. Baird, quotes 
that eminent English statesman, Lord Huskinson, 
as using the following words in his place in 
Parliament : 

" To give capital a fair remuneration, labor must be 
kept down." 

Now, I trust you can see clearly the reason 
why Mr. Greeley's speech was not published in 
the London Times. He had entered a plea in 
behalf of labor. He had toasted that humble 
mechanic, Joseph Paxton, Esq. What right had 
he to toast him, when there were kings, queens, 
and princes to be toasted ; was the question in 
the mind of the aristocratic editor of the London 



AS A NATION. 29 

Times. The European capitalists wanted no 
more of Horace Greeley. That speech damned 
him in their estimation; but it should endear 
him to the heart of every son of toil. It was 
one of many noble deeds which has given him a 
name that will bloom in history with those of 
Washington and Lincoln. 

Now, a thought for you: — With this history 
before you can you doubt that, should any dis- 
tinguished citizen of this country visit Europe, 
and preach the American gospel pure and sim- 
ple, he would receive the same treatment at the 
hands of the same class of men? But Lord 
Napier's statement renders it certain that dis- 
tinguished Americans lately visiting Europe, 
encounter no such difficulties, for they preach a 
very different doctrine, and pander to a very 
different sentiment. 



One of these recent visitors was Gen. Grant. 
His pathway was strewn with *flowers, the air 
was made vocal with music at his approach, and 
parades and ovations were instituted in his honor. 
And by whom were they instituted ? By the 
yeomanry of Europe ? No! By the men who, 
when we were engaged in a death grapple with 
rebellion, rejoiced in our triumphs and lamented 



30 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

our defeat ? No ! By men whose hearts beat in 
warm sympathy with this government, because 
it pretends to arm with the ballot everything 
having the upright form of man? No! They 
were instituted by ministers and consuls from 
this side, backed by lords and dukes and 
crowned heads on the other. Do those lords, 
dukes and kings love a Republic? No! And 
they are not hypocritical in that respect, for 
they do not pretend to love a Republic. It was 
painful to see our people deluded by a subsidized 
press, into the belief that General Grant was 
being hailed by the aristocracy of Europe, as a 
great military chieftain, who had helped to save 
to the world a great Republic; for such was not 
the case. No such reason can be assigned for the 
honors paid to him there. The class of men who 
paid most attention to Grant were not glad that 
the Republic was saved. 

The students at Oxford, as is well known, are 
aristocrats, and when a class graduates, it is 
made an occasion of considerable moment; 
much speech-making and toasting usually takes 
place. And it will be remembered, that when 
our country was being torn with civil war, 
a large number of the wealthy citizens of Great 
Britain had assembled to witness graduating 
exercises at Oxford. The names of Abraham 
Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were mentioned on 



AS A NATION. 3 I 

that occasion. When the name of Lincoln was 
spoken, there were hisses and groans all through 
that vast throng of aristocrats. When the name 
of Davis was spoken, cheers rent the air. 

Gen. Grant was petted in Europe by the very 
men who, when the lowering clouds of war 
frowned above the nation's head — when liberty 
hung in the balance — when our forts were 
beleaguered, and it was uncertain whether we 
were to live or be stricken from the list of 
nations, hastened to acknowledge the South as 
belligerent, and sought every excuse to inter- 
fere in the interest of the Southern Confederacy. 
Their desire was that this glorious Union might 
be rent in twain, and the last hope of a success- 
ful Republic fade from the memory of mankind 
forever. They prayed that this Democratic 
government might go down in its starry banner 
to a bloody grave, and kings and princes dance 
the dance of death on the ruins of Republican 
liberty. 

QUEEN VICTORIA'S FONDNESS FOR GEN. GRANT. 

Here I will call attention to a paragraph which 
appeared in the Wisconsin State Jburnal under 
date April 9th, 1880. The journal is the official 
organ for that State — that is to say, it is honored 
with the State printing. The paragraph reads 
as follows: 



32 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" Queen Victoria is very fond of General Grant, and 
disappointed that he is not nominated. She had the 
description of his tour specially bound for her at a cost 
of forty dollars a set." 

The yoiimal publishes the above with appar- 
ent delight. Why is the "Journal pleased at 
the Queen's fondness for General Grant? Is it: 
one of those journals which Wiiidom says is 
owned by the money -power ? Think you it could 
get the State printing under the present regime 
in Wisconsin if it v/ere not? And why is Queen 
Victoria fond of General Grant ? Has he won her 
by Democratic arguments — has he preached the 
American gospel to her? What would disgust 
her more? She has no taste for that kind of 
sermons. Then, too, General Grant is one of 
those u first-class ■ Americans " whom Lord 
Napier met, and describes as having no confi- 
dence in Republican institutions. The reason 
for Queen Victoria's fondness for General Grant 
lies deeper than any yet given, and, as will be 
seen later in this discussion, has a more direct 
bearing on the subject of these lectures than 
appears at first glance. She does not love 
Republicanism, nor the representative of it. 
But she has touched his hand, and sees in him 
the elements of imperialism. She knows him to 
be not a sly but an -an open advocate of a strong 
centralized government, and, my countrymen, in. 



AS A NATION. 33 

the spirit which prompted the binding of the 
volume which cost the Queen of Great Britain 
forty dollars, lurks the giant enemy of our insti- 
tutions. For it is clear to the careful thinker 
who has watched the movements of the money 
power in connection with the movements of 
General Grant, both in office and in his tour 
around the world, that there is a chord of sym- 
pathy between, not only him and those who have 
moulded him to suit their purposes, but that it 
reaches through the money power, even to the 
crowned heads of Europe, and that the desire to 
see this country subjected to Caesarism, is not 
only mutual between the aristocrats of both Con- 
tinents, but that the Caesarites here are receiving 
aid from the friends of despotism there. 

C^ESARISM NOT REPUDIATED BY THE CHICAGO 
CONVENTION. 

But, say you, " Grantism was repudiated at 
the Chicago Convention." Not so. There was 
not one word uttered in that Convention against 
the fitness of Gen. Grant for the Presidency 
(that is, so far as could be gathered from the 
Republican newspapers, purporting to publish 
the sayings and doings of that Convention). On 
the contrary, James A. Garfield, who filially 
received the nomination, said in that Convention : 



34 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" No name stirs my bosom like that of U. S. Grant." 

Stronger yet: the Convention passed a reso- 
lution committing every voter in it to the support 
of Gen. Grant, had he been nominated. It came 
from Roscoe Conkling, and every member of 
that Convention knew what it meant. Conkling 
was not the most zealous champion of the Grant 
interest, but he was the boldest and most out- 
spoken; in other words, the most manly. He 
plead openly, while the others admitted their 
complicity by voting for the following resolu- 
tion: 

"Resolved, That it is the sense of this Convention that 
every member of it is bound in honor to support its 
nominee, whoever that nominee may be, and that no 
man should hold a seat here who is not ready to so 
agree." 

Every member, with two exceptions, voted 
for that resolution. 

Mr. Hall, of Maine, is reported by the Repub- 
lican papers as saying that 

" He took it for granted that a Republican Conven- 
tion did not need such instructions. Although he came 
here with preferences, he had yet to hear any expression 
by any delegate that he would not stand by the final action 
of the Convention. He would support the nominee, and 
he expected Mr. Conkling to do the same." 

If circumstances and Republican testimony 
can prove anything, then it is proven that there 



AS A NATION. 35 

was no repudiation of Grantism in the Chicago 
Convention; for, mark you, all these pledges 
-were made while Gen. Grant had almost as 
many delegates as all other aspirants combined 
and his nomination seemed to be a foregone 
conclusion. 

Where was the repudiation of Grantism at the 
Chicago Convention? was it in the fact that he 
failed to receive the nomination? If his failure 
to receive the nomination was a repudiation of 
Grantism, then the failure of Blaine and Sher- 
man to receive the nomination was a repudiation 
of Blaineism and Shermanism. The fact is, the 
action of that convention had no such effect or 
significance. Delegates were there in the inter- 
est of three candidates. The Blaine and Sher- 
man delegates had not been elected to vote 
against Grant, but to vote for their respective 
candidates — Blaine and Sherman. The same is 
true of those elected in the interest of Grant, and 
one set of delegates said in effect to the other, if 
you will not allow my candidate to be nominated 
1 will not allow yours to be nominated. So the 
only way out of the dilemma was to nominate a 
new man, which they did. But the significant 
fact is, that when Gen. Grant was receiving 
almost as many votes as all the other candidates 
combined and there was scarcely a doubt of his 
nomination, the convention, as we have seen, 



36 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

passed a resolution binding itself to support him 
if nominated. There was no repudiation of 
Csesarism at the Chicago Convention. 

This convention developed no opposition to 
the centralizing schemes of the capitalists. On 
the contrary, it developed a spirit of acquiesence 
and even complicity, which, when understood is 
truly alarming. There was a resolute attempt 
to violate a time-honored principle of our gov- 
ernment, with the third term project, and every 
member of the convention knew that it was a 
scheme of the money power of two continents. 
Yet not one raised his voice against it, if there 
were any who in their hearts were opposed to it, 
they dared not say so, they dare not incur the 
displeasure of the money power. Now let us 
see what it all means, and what reference, if any, 
it has to the subject under consideration. In 
my judgment it bears directly upon the point at 
issue, and ma} T be regarded, not as a straw, whose 
slight nod indicates the direction of the sum- 
mer's breeze, but as the forest bending before 
the tornado's mighty power. It shows the 
power of the money-power in the United States, 
and sends searching thought through to the 
fountain head, in Europe, from which our codfish 
aristocracy draws its inspiration, and renders the 



AS A NATION. 37 

inference irresistable that the combined influence 
of the capitalists of the world is making fearful 
inroads upon our free institutions. 



38 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



LECTURE II. 



SILVER DEMONITIZED IN THE UNITED STATES. 

SILVER DEMONETIZED IN THE EXITED STATES THROUGH THE 
INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN CAPITALISTS — ERNEST SEYD BRIBES 
CONGRESS— TESTIMONY OF THE BANKER'S MAGAZINE — BASE 
MOTIVES FOR DEMONETIZING SILVER — BRITISH STATESMAN- 
SHIP — GEN. GRANT ON SILVER — GRANT'S LETTER TO JUDGE 
STRONG — GRANT AT SAN FRANCISCO — NEW YORK TRIBUNE 
APPROVES THE DESPOTISM OF MONOPOLIES — NEW YORK TIMES 
ON TENANT FARMING^— SENATOR SHARON ADVOCATES 

STRONG CENTRALIZED GOVERNMENT — THE WEALTH OF THE 
NATION MUST AND SHALL CONTROL IT— FIRST STEPS TOWARD 
DESPOTISM. 

The American people, as yet, know nothing 
of oppression experimentally. They have 
not visited countries where it exists even, and 
not being directly affected by it, they have given 
the subject but very little attention. They do 
not yet understand that governments become 
despotic, through the centralization of wealth, 
by legislation, nor that, by legislation, the wealth 
of this nation is being centralized into the hands 
of a few. Yet this is true. All the machinery, by 
which despotisms are made, is in very active 
operation in this country, and much of the motive 
power and lubricating oil necessary to keep 
that machinery running, is furnished by the 
capitalists of Europe. Now, for the proof. 



AS A NATION. 



39 



While General Grant was president of the 
United States silver was demonetized, mainly, 
through the influence of the money power of 
Europe. Fellow citizens, did you know that ? 
No. Well, as I reveal the astounding fact, may 
you feel the mighty force of that immortal sen- 
tence, from the lips ot Jefferson, Eternal vigi- 
lance is the -price of liberty. I have been 
proving to you that the press is keeping you in 
ignorance of that which is most necessary for 
you to know. The fact which I have just stated 
and am about to prove, did not find its way into 
the kind of literature read by the common peo- 
ple, and they have not been searching like jealous 
lovers of liberty. Henceforth, may they be 
more vigilant. 

ERNEST SEYD BRIBES CONGRESS. 

In the Congressional Record, of April 9, 1872, 
page 2032, appear these . words from Mr. 
Hooper, of Massachusetts, Chairman of the 
Committee on Coinage: 

" Ernest Seyd, of London, a distinguished writer and 
bullionist, who is now here, has given great attention 
to the subject of mint and coinage. After having 
examined the first draft of this bill, he made various 
sensible suggestions, which the committee adopted 
and embodied in the bill." 



4° 



WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



Think you the manipulators of the Chicago 
Convention in 1880 did not know of the exist- 
ence of the fact above quoted? They did, and 
were silent; and the press was silent. But 
there the fact stands on our own Congress- 
ional Records, in Republican hand-writing, 
and can not be obliterated. But, say you " what 
of it, England is a very enlightened nation, much 
older and more experienced in the management 
of Government finances than we are, and Mr. 
Seyd is one of her most distinguished citizens. 
A writer and bullionist, he happened to be here 
at the time our less experienced statesmen 
needed his advice. They sought it and he gave 
it, and we see nothing shocking in it." 

The mild and delicate reference made to it by 
Hooper in the Congressional Record might sug- 
gest such a view of the case. But the following 
from the Bankers Magazine for August, 1873, 
will dispel all such illusions: 

" In 1872, silver being demonetized in France, 
England and Holland, a capital of one hundred 
thousand pounds ($500,000) was raised, and Ernest 
Seyd, of London, was sent to this country with this 
fund as the agent of the foreign bondholders and cap- 
italists to effect the same object, which was accom- 
plished." 

The above quotation lets the light in upon 
the whole transaction. It was the money power 



AS A NATION. 4 1 

of Europe that secured the demonetization of 
silver in 1872. Five hundred thousand dollars 
was raised by foreign capitalists, and Ernest 
Seyd was sent here to corrupt our Congress, 
which he did. I will here add that the Hon. 
Gilbert De Lamatyr, of Indiana, in a speech 
delivered at Bismark Grove, Kan., in August, 
1 88 1, said that Judge Kelley, of Pennsylvania, 
stated to him that he (Judge Kelley) saw the 
first draft of the bill by which silver was 
demonetized, in the hand-writing of Ernest Seyd, 
of London; so, according to Judge Kelley, who 
is one of the most prominent Republicans in the 
United States, Mr. Seycl did more than to make 
what Mr. Hooper called a sensible suggestion 
— he drew the bill itself. 

BASE MOTIVES FOR DEMONETIZING SILVER. 

Now, in order to understand what all this 
means, we must find what motive Mr. Seyd had 
to use his money for the demonetization of silver 
in the United States. Well, Mr. Sevd is a large 
owner of American bonds, which, under existing 
laws we had the right to pay, principal and inter- 
est, in silver. In England our standard silver dol- 
lar, containing 4.1 2^ grains of silver, is not worth 
as much by at least ten cents on the dollar 
as our gold dollar, containing 25 8-loth grains 



42 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of gold. Hence, you see by destroying the 
money quality of silver, his bonds become paya- 
ble in gold only, thus adding immensely to their 
value. William Vanderbilt, of New York, is 
said to have sixty million dollars invested in 
bonds. Let us suppose that Ernest Seyd, of 
London, has the same amount. At four per 
cent., his annual interest, paid in gold, would 
amount to $2,400,000; paid in standard silver 
dollars, it would be worth in London only 
$2,160,000, or ten per cent. less. Hence, the 
difference to Mr. Seyd would be $240,000 per 
annum, or $657 per day in his interest income. 
I trust you now see clearly why Mr. Se}'d wanted 
silver demonetized in the United States. It 
would add $6,000,000 to the value of his bonds, 
and $657 to his daily income. Thus it is seen 
he could afford to pay the whole $500,000 which 
it cost to perform that act of villiany (or to make 
that suggestion, as Mr. Hooper calls it) himself, 
for the $6,000,000 which the act added to the 
value of his bonds would have left him the 
gainer to the extent of $5,500,000 after deduct- 
ing the $500,000 which it cost him to bribe 
Congressmen. This calculation is based upon the 
supposition that Mr. Seyd owns as many bonds 
as Vanderbilt, and that the difference in the 
value of our standard silver dollar and our stand- 
ard gold dollar in the London market is ten per 



AS A NATION. 43 

cent. The market reports show the average to 
be much greater than that, I am, therefore, well 
inside the line in my calculation, so far as it 
relates to Mr. Seyd ? s personal interests. But it 
should be remembered that in that transaction 
he represented more than ten times that amount 
of money — he represented the bondholding inter- 
ests of the Old World ; those bonds are held in 
every city in Europe, and the capitalists all over 
those vast empires are interested, and could well 
afford to subscribe to the corruption fund as they 
did. 

Then think of the vast amount invested in 
bonds by men on this side of the sea, whose 
interests are identical with those on the other, 
and you can realize what a mighty power there 
was interested in the demonitization of silver in 
the United States. Who wonders that there is 
concert of action on the part of the bondholders 
of all countries ! But, say you, who blames the 
bondholder ? Who would not enhance the value 
of his property if he could? What man would 
not add six hundred and fifty-seven dollars 
($657) per day to his income if he had the 
opportunity? Well, if you feel that, had you 
the wealth and power, you could so far forget 
your duty to your God and countiy as to engage 
in the damnable business of bribing and corrupt- 
ing the people's representatives, endangering 



44 : WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

liberty itself, for the sake of increasing the value 
of your own property when you were rolling in 
wealth already, then, in that case, the bond- 
holder is no worse than you are; for then it 
would be a matter of business with him. But 
}'ou should remember that his gain is } T our loss. 
Every dollar that a man accumulates over and 
above what he earns must, of necessity, be the 
earnings of others — somebody must have earned 
it- — but, by some trick of legerdemain, it 
found its way into the wrong pocket. Hence, 
looking at this matter from a strictly business 
standpoint, it is the mandate of common busi- 
ness prudence that you clearly understand these 
things, so that you may know what becomes of 
the results of your toil. 

Look at Europe! From whence came those 
colossal fortunes on one hand, and such distress- 
ing poverty on the other? They came by legis- 
lation. It is not likely that Ernest Seyd ever 
added one dollar to the world's wealth. His 
accumulations are the earnings of others, the 
result of swapping dollars. His fortune was 
filched from toil, because toil was too unsuspect- 
ing to stand guard over its own interests. 

But I put this upon other and higher grounds 
than that of dollars and cents. Daniel Webster 
touched a grand principle when he said : 



AS A NATION. 45 

" Liberty cannot long endure in any country where 
the tendency of legislation is to concentrate wealth in 
the hands of a few." 

It is with that vital thought I wish to impress 
you. 

Legislation that increases the value of bonds 
increases the people's burdens. The more valu- 
able our bonds become, the more labor will be 
required to pay them. The rise of our bonds in 
Europe means that more of the products of our 
labor must go into the hands of the European 
capitalists, and, of course, the same principle 
holds good in reference to our bonds at home. 
To legislate so as to increase their value one mil- 
lion dollars, is to legislate one million of the 
people's earnings into the bondholders' pock- 
ets. It is to give bonds the preference. It 
is to place capital above labor, in the 
structure of the government, and centralize 
the wealth of the nation into the hands of 
the few. That was the purpose of the act 
demonetizing silver. It was that kind of legis- 
lation which Webster declared would destroy 
the liberties of any people. It was that which 
Mr. Lincoln warned you would add to your 
burdens till all of liberty would be lost. Such 
has ever been the financial policy of the govern- 
ment which Ernest Seyd represents. 



46 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Let us glance at some of the facts and results 
of English financial statesmanship. 

BRITISH STATESMANSHIP. 

The condition of Ireland and India are striking 
illustrations of the wisdom and beneficence of 
British statesmanship. In the fifth volume of the 
Nineteenth Century, a work published in London, 
I noticed in an article on the condition of India, 
that, according to a report of a committee 
appointed by the British Parliament (for a more 
extended notice of that report see Progress and 
Poverty, by Henry George), in some parts 
of India wages for field hands were one and one- 
half pence -per day. I noticed, also, that the price 
of salt iv as one and one-half -pence per pound. 
Thus, the poor field hand would be compelled to 
toil all day for a pound of salt. Listen ! I further 
noticed that nine-tenths of the cost of that salt 
was tax, levied by the beneficent statesman- 
ship of Great Britain. Listen again: In 1878, 
when famine had spread her dark wings over 
unhappy India — when men, women and children 
were dying of starvation, and did die in numbers 
variously estimated from one to seven millions 
(and history shows that, while there was such 
intense suffering among the people, cattle sick- 
ened and died for the want of salt) — in that year 



AS A NATION. 47 

Great Britain took from starving India over 
thirty-fare millions of dollars in tax on the one 
article of salt! 

Now, do you know what Great Britain does 
with the money so raised ? She uses it largely 
to support an army of aristocrats in idleness, and 
an army of soldiers to hold and to keep India 
and Ireland down while she robs them, and to 
pay interest on the untaxed bonds of Ernest Seyd 
and his fellow bondholders; for British states- 
manship has loaded the English people with a 
bonded debt. These are the political and 
industrial arrangements which, according to 
the London Times, Mr. Greeley's theory 
would seriously disturb. That is the statesman- 
ship which, according to your own Congressional 
Record, revises and superintends legislation in 
free America. 

You are mistaken if you think you threw off 
the British yoke entirely, at the close of the 
Revolution. On the contrary, you retained one 
of its most oppressive features — their mone- 
tary system, which, cruel as the grave and relent- 
less as the winter's wind, halts at the boundary 
line of no country where it is possible to cross — 
respects no people — pities no condition. The 
grasping giant reached across the sea, demone- 
tized silver, and smote our prosperity in 1873. 



48 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Grant, Secretary Sherman, and, in fact, almost 
our entire Congress, fell at his touch. 

The whole transaction of demonetizing silver 
in 1872, was an outrage upon this overworked 
and overtaxed people. It was an insult to their 
patriotism and intelligence, and a mighty blow 
aimed at representative government. It will be 
remembered that, when it became known silver 
had been demonetized and the dollar of the Fathers 
destroyed, a gale of indignation swept over the 
country, from Massachusetts to Nebraska, from. 
Lake Itasca to the Gulf. Without distinction of 
party — Democrats, Republicans and Greenback- 
ers — all said to that treacherous Congress: 
Restore that dollar! And they did restore it. 
They limited the coinage of silver, however,, 
which neutralized the effect of the law which 
the people had asked them to pass. But they 
did something — enough to show that they fear 
the people when they are aroused. 

GEN. GRANT ON SILVER. 

At this point Gen. Grant's views on the silver 
question, become useful for the purpose of this 
discussion. They may be gathered from an 
extract, wnich I take from his letter to his friend 
Cowdry, a New York banker, bearing date 
Oct. 6th, 1873, and published in the Chicago* 
Tribune March 30, 1878. It is as follows: 



AS A NATION. 49 

" Our mines are now producing almost unlimited 
amounts of silver, and it is becoming a question, what 
shall we do with it? I suggest here a solution that 
will answer for some years, and suggest to you bankers 
whether you may not imitate it — to put it in circula- 
lation. Now keep it there until it is fixed, and then we 
will find other markets. The South and Central Ameri- 
can countries have asked us to coin their silver for 
them, There never has been authority of law to do so. 
I trust it will now be given. . . . We become the 
manufacturers of this currency with a profit, and shall 
probably secure a portion of our pay in the more pre- 
cious metals " 

I wish to impress this thought upon your 
minds: that on the 6th of October, 1873, Gen. 
Grant was not only in favor of the unlimited- 
coinage of our own silver, but he was in favor of 
coining for South America and taking our pay 
in the more precious metals. u Pat it in circula- 
tion" says Grant, u and keep it there! " 

grant's letter to judge strong. 

Now mark: — When the bill which was to 
put it in circulation was pending before Congress 
Gen. Grant was no longer President, but he was 
in Europe, and he wrote a letter to Judge Strong, 
of St. Louis, which was published by several 
newspapers, and quoted by Gen. Weaver in a 
speech in Congress. In that letter he spoke of 
silver; and what did he say — Put it in circu- 



50 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

laiion and keep it there f Oh, no ! that was what 
he advised before he had been sent around the 
world by the money power. Here is his lan- 
guage to Judge Strong : 

" If I were where I was one year ago, and the seven 
years previous (meaning in the Presidential chair), I 
would put my unqualified veto upon that bill." 

What has happened to you, General Grant? 
Only a few months since you were for putting 
silver into circulation and keeping it there. Now 
you say you would veto the only means by which 
it can possibly be gotten into circulation. Does 
not Gen. Grant remember saying, during his first 
term, " that he felt he had no policy to enforce 
against the will of the people." Since then he 
has been petted in Europe — he has become the 
money man's man — and while ninety-nine one- 
hundredths of this people are clamoring for the 
passage of a certain bill, he says he would veto 
it, if he had the power. He would thwart the 
w T ill of his countrymen in the interest of the 
capitalist. 

Listen! After declaring that he would veto 
the bill if he had an opportunity, he added: 
" and, should Congress pass it over my veto, I 
would urge the business community to disregard 
it by refusing to make contracts not payable in 
gold.'" Now I ask this people to stop and think. 



AS A NATION. 5 I 

That declaration by Gen. Grant can not be said 
to be just like those made by Jefferson Davis 
before the breaking out of the rebellion, but 
there are very strong points of similarity. Davis 
asked the Southern people to disregard the acts 
of Congress ; Gen. Grant would advise the whole 
business community North and South to do the 
same thing. The sentiments are alike, in that 
they both show a total disregard of the will of 
the majority of the American people. They are 
both anti-Republican, and one as much so as the 
other. 

What is the logic of the advice which our 
would-be modern Csesar proposed to give, had 
he been President? Let us see: Gen. Grant is 
President of the United States; Congress passes 
a law; Grant vetoes it; the people demand its 
passage, and Congress by a two-third vote pass 
it over his veto ; it has become a law, under the 
Constitution, in spite of his veto. Now, the 
the people have passed a law, through their 
representatives, by an overwhelming majority, 
and they expect the President, whom they have 
chosen as their servant, and who has sworn to 
see that the laws are faithfully executed, to co- 
operate with them not only in a peaceful, but 
forcible manner if necessary, in enforcing, and 
giving full effect to, the laws which they have 



K2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

«-* » 

made. But the President, unlike Washington 
and Lincoln, refuses to be the servant of the 
people; he has been to Europe and learned a 
very different lesson; he now proposes to be their 
master, and is ready not only to refuse to give 
moral support to laws which the people have 
made for themselves, but to urge the business 
community to disregard them. The logic of 
Gen. Grant's declaration to Judge Strong, is a 
total overthrow of Republican government in 
this country; it means nothing less. He, in 
effect, says to the capitalists: " The people desire 
that a certain policy shall prevail, and to that 
end have made a law ; now, let us join our forces 
and prevent it; let us disregard it." 

Here, fellow-citizens, }^ou have Grant and the 
capitalists on one side, and the people on the other, 
with this difference: Grant has all the military 
and capital, well organized, on his side, while the 
people are poor and in an unorganized condition 
on the other. Now, the simple fact that Gen. 
Grant has been moulded over, by the money 
power of this country and Europe, would not be 
very startling were it not for the powerful senti- 
ment behind him, which seems to be increasing 
in volume, and moving on with great rapidity. 
Gen. Grant is simply the figure-head, the index, 
to a sentiment which pervades the wealthier 
classes in this country to an alarming extent, while 



AS A NATION. 53 

the people seem so indifferent and thoughtless. 
Twenty years ago had an American, however 
high in the estimation of the people, written the 
letter which Gen. Grant wrote to Judge Strong, 
a howl of indignation would have gone up from 
forty million throats, and his name would have 
become a stench to the American people. But 
Gen. Grant writes it, and then becomes a very 
strong candidate for the nomination for a third 
term, and the sentiment behind him was so 
strong that he barely missed the nomination. 
And then his defeat, as I have shown, was not 
because he was obnoxious to the convention, but 
was due to another cause altogether. 

The fact that the capitalists were managing 
the Chicago Convention is significant. The 
people ought not to trust such men to control con- 
ventions and dictate nominations, but they do; and 
the money power, controlling the press, fixes it up 
and makes them believe that it is all right. Indeed, 
so long have the people permitted themselves to be 
hoodwinked, and so patiently have they sub- 
mitted to insult and injury, that their masters have 
taken courage and grown very insolent. Read 
the following from the New York Tribune^ 
1878: 



54 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE APPROVES THE 
DESPOTISM OF MONOPOLY. 

" The time is near when they (the banks) will feel 
themselves compelled to act strongly. Meanwhile a 
very good thing has been done. The machinery is now 
furnished by which, in any emergency, the financial 
corporations of the East can act together on a single 
day's notice, with such power that no act of Congress 
can overcome or resist their decision." 

"A very good thing has been done," sa}~s the 
Tribune. What is that good thing? Why, it 
is a good thing that the machinery is now fur- 
nished by which, in any emergency, the financial 
corporations of the East can act together, at a 
single day^s notice, with such -power that no act 
of Congress can overcome or resist their deci- 
sion. 

Here you have it, not from an obscure and 
irresponsible source, but from as high authority 
as the money power can give. The New York 
Tribune is a leading metropolitan journal, owned 
by monied men, and whatever we may think of 
its tendency to misrepresent on other subjects, it 
certainly has no conceivable motive to mislead 
in this case. No paper on the Continent 
indicates the drift of sentiment in the money 
circles with more certitude. It is, so to speak, 
the fountain-head for intelligence on that subject ; 
and here is a clear cut and clear ringing declara- 



AS A NATION. 55 

tion that, in an emergency, the financial corpora- 
tions of the East can act with more power than 
the American people. Great God! is it true? 
Can it be that the financial corporations of the 
East can overcome the decision of this people on 
twenty-four hours' notice? Is this mighty nation 
helpless in the hands of the money power? Is 
the boasted Republic at the feet of Shylock? 
The Tribune says it is, and that it is a good 

thi?i<r> 

Fellow-countrymen, is that the dear, old 
Tribune which, guided by the strong hand of 
Horace Greeley, did more than any other one influ- 
ence to revolutionize the sentiment of a continent 
in the interest of freedom? Is that the Tribune 
that did more than any twenty men on earth to 
make it possible to raise the magnificent army 
that conquered the rebellion ? Is that the Tribune 
from which Abraham Lincoln said he learned his 
statesmanship? How does its sentiments accord 
with those which fell in solemn beauty from the 
lips of Lincoln on the immortal field of Gettys- 
burg, " That this is a government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people." According 
to the Tribune, this is a government of the 
banks, by the banks, and for the banks. Oh, 
Tribune! how fallen! Oh, people! how apa- 
thetic! 

The fact that one of our leading journals can 



56 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

boastingly declare the supremacy of the money 
power in this country, and still retain a leading 
position in the dominant political party, shows 
a condition of the public mind fearful to con- 
template. Shall we not ask ourselves : Whither 
are we drifting: as a nation? 

NEW YORK TIMES ON TENANT FARMING. 

Hardly less insolent and unpatriotic is an 
article from the New York Times, under date 
August 12th, 1877. Farmers and toilers, read 
it. I extract the following from it: 

" Is there deliverance ? There seems to be but one 
remedy, and it must come — a change of ownership 
of the soil, and a creation of a class of land owners 
on the one hand, and of tenant farmers on the 
other — something similar in both cases to that which 
has long existed, and now exists, in the older coun- 
tries of Europe, and similar, also, to a system that 

is common in our own State of California 

Everything seems ripe for the change; half the farms 
in the country are ready to be sold if buyers would only 
appear, and hundreds that can now be bought for less 
than their value twenty or thirty years ago, need only 
judicious- outlay to make them as productive as ever. 
Few farmers can hope to provide their sons with farms 
of their own, and there is no place for these young 
men in the overcrowded cities." 

In high glee over the bright outcome for the 
farmer which its elucidation of the subject 



AS A NATION 57 

makes appear inevitable as a result of his farming 
as a tenant instead of as owner of the soil, the 
Times further says : 

••And then will begin a new era in agriculture, and 
one that seems to be very desirable." 

I commend you to a careful perusal of the 
whole article, as published in the Times. The 
Times says that the farmers need " educating up to 
it " (the idea of becoming tenants instead of owners 
of the soil). Farmers, would that be educating 
you up or down? Such doctrine is cruel, unpa- 
triotic and dangerous. It looks to a despotism. 
It is of a piece with the article quoted from the 
Tribune. It would place capital above labor. 
It would reduce our noble farming community to 
a level with the pauper labor of Europe. Such 
doctrine is worthy of a hireling press, but is 
utterly unworthy of freemen. 

I despise the Times for its base attempt to 
convince the people that they are incapable of 
farming on their own account, and that their 
condition would be improved by becoming ten- 
ants, receiving so much of the results of their 
labor as their masters might see fit to give them. 
I have no feeling but that of contempt for the 
man who would curse the virgin soil of America 
with the cruel tenant system of Europe. No 
language can measure my hatred of a spirit so 



58 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

inhuman and so insolent as to tell the frugal 
farmer, with the example of Ireland before him, 
that he cannot hope to see his son settled on a 
farm of his own. What? No place on earth 
for the farmer's son but to be the slave of a 
master on, perchance, the very farm his own 
hand has helped to carve from the forest! " Do 
you look for the advent of such a system? " 
Does not the New York Times boast that it 
has come in California already? And that 
happy editor is looking forward, with joyous- 
anticipation, to the time when it shall prevail 
here. Yes — that tenant system — a cruel, grasp- 
ing tyrant, having devastated Europe, turns 
his eyes toward the setting sun, and beholding 
our own beautiful, happy Western world, he 
admires and covets, he creeps stealthily in, and 
plants his feet upon the most beautiful spot o£ 
earth the God of nature ever smiled upon, and 
pollutes the sweetest air ever breathed by mortal 
lungs. 

Who does not know that thirty-years ago 
California was Earth's paradise for the poor 
man. Is it not the universal testimony, that only 
the rich have a chance there now. The state 
has been largely handed over to the tenant sys- 
tem, and capital has closed the door of advance- 
ment against the laborer there, as Mr. Lincoln 
feared it would everywhere. The Times may 



AS A NATION. 59 

take courage, for since it published that article 
in 1877, the European capitalists have purchased 
large tracts of land in different parts of the 
Union, for the same purpose. The tenant sys- 
tem is not only firmly rooted, and holding an 
absolute control over the soil of California, but 
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Mis- 
souri, Colorado, Texas and Arkansas are begin- 
ning to feel its blighting touch. 

Adding what European capitalists have pur- 
chased in other states, to that which is already 
used for that purpose in California, and we have 
what in other countries would be considered 
an area, vast enough to found an empire, 
dedicated to a system of tenantry the his- 
tory of which, I would to God, our laboring 
people better understood. It had a small begin- 
ning, and its growth in Europe has never been 
half as rapid as it is in the United States at 
the present time. But, as it advanced there, 
in the absorption of the land, it increased in 
severity and cruelty to an extent which would 
defy human belief, were it not that poor suffering 
down-trodden Ireland, daily thunders the awful 
story in the dull ears of a thoughtless world. 
When a man's necessities force him to become a 
tenant, what hope is there that he will ever be- 
come anything else? Are hot the very necessities 
which forced him there likely to keep him there? 



6o WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

There are exceptions, of course; and it is true 
that at the present time, one might begin a ten- 
ant, and with health and good luck, gain enough 
to purchase a home of his own, or to get on to 
the public lands and make one. But the man is 
now a voter who will live to see the last hundred 
square miles of public land pass from the posses- 
sion of the government. Then what? Why 
the price of land is continually rising, and as land 
rises rent rises; and soon, a piece of land which 
would yield support for a family, will be beyond 
the purchasing power of the net earnings of half 
a life time. As land increases in value the peo- 
ple loose their power to purchase, and as the 
people loose their power to purchase, the landlord 
gains power to raise his rents. Tenants multiply, 
while darker and darker grows the laborer's 
pathway, till he finally stumbles into a pauper's 
grave. To encourage the tenant system in this 
country is to invite despotism for the masses, and 
the New York Times knows it, and that is why 
it invites it. Fellow-countrymen, cannot you see 
the animus of the money-power. Their ropes are 
deeply and cunningly laid, to make a despotism 
of this Republic. They advise you to that which 
will rob you not only of your land, but of your 
independence, wherein lies your power to resist 
oppression. 



AS A NATION. 6 1 

SENATOR SHARON ADVOCATES A STRONG 
CENTRALIZED GOVERNMENT. 

When I first became conscious, in my own 
mind, that the leaders of the two old parties 
were seeking to build up an aristocracy here, my 
first anxious enquiry was: How shall I make 
the people understand it? I knew that they 
were receiving their political education from a 
press which finds it profitable to mislead them. 
I could see duplicity in almost every newspaper 
I would take up. But the too confiding people 
had not taken the time to investigate as I had. 
Their prejudices were very strong and they could 
not see it. It was almost as much as ones 
reputation for sanity was worth, to intimate that 
any considerable number of our influential men 
had a leaning towards a centralized government. 
I felt that the proof must be very strong, indeed 
indisputable, if I would gain the attention of the 
people. 

Up to this point, I have shown by circum- 
stantial evidence, which seems to me to be 
perfectly irresistable, if any evidence can be said. 
to be irresistable, that the aim and tendency of 
all the movements of the money power is tow- 
ards the centralization of the powers of this go\ - 
ernment into the hands ot a few rich men. 

If still there lingers a doubt, it will be removed 



6l WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

by the positive testimony of one of the most 
influential men in American politics. I refer to 
Senator Sharon, of Nevada. He is one of the 
wealthiest Senators the Republican party ever 
had. The testimony which I am about to quote 
appeared in the Nevada Chronicle, Senator 
Sharon's own paper (for the article entire see 
Heath's Labor and Finance Revelation, page 
259). I extract the following: 

" We need a stronger government; the wealth of the 
country demands it. Without capital and the capital- 
ists our government would not be worth a fig. The 
capital of the country demands protection. Its rights are as 
sacred as the rights of the paupers, who are continu- 
ally prating about the encroachments of capital, and 
against centralization. . . The wealth of the country has 
to bear the burdens of the government, and-it shall con- 
trol it. The people are becoming educated up to this 
theory rapidly, and the sooner this theory is recognized 
in the constitution and laws, the better it will be for the 
people. Without bloodshed, and rivers of it, there will 
be no political change of Administration. The monied 
interests of the country, for self-preservation, must 
sustain the Republican party. The railroads, the 
banks, the manufactories, the heavy importers, and all 
classes of business in which millions are invested, will 
maintain the supremacy of the Republican party. . . . To 
avert fearful bloodshed, a strong central government 
should be established as soon as possible." 

" We need a stronger central government" is 
the language of Senator Sharon. What for? 



AS A NATION. 63 

Should a foreign foe threaten our flag, has not 
the government full power to call out an army 
of men (draft them, if necessary), and equip 
them for defense? Yes! Should there be an insur- 
rection, does the government lack the constitu- 
tional power to suppress it? No! 

THE WEALTH OF THE NATION MUST AND 
SHALL CONTROL IT. 

Then what more do you want, Senator Sharon ? 
He answers in these words: " The wealth of the 
country shall control it." His meaning is not 
obscure. Those words have no uncertain sound ; 
they have the genuine monarchical ring. He 
calls for a strong central government, and 
declares that wealth shall control it. How can 
the wealth of the country control unless the poor 
are disfranchised? The poor are very largely 
in the majority, and, if allowed to vote, can con- 
trol the country. His meaning shines forth in 
these words: " The people are becoming educated 
up to this theory rapidly, and the sooner this 
theory is recognized in the constitution and latvs^ 
the better it will be for the people. 1 ' Now we 
have it. We are aware that wealth controls the 
government now. But Senator Sharon is not 
satisfied with that; he wants the wealth-eontrol- 
ing theory incorporated into the constitution and 



6j\. whither are we drifting 

laws, thus making it impossible to be otherwise.. 
It means a -property qualification for voters / a 
disfranchisement of a large portion of this 
people. His language is susceptible of no other 
meaning. Do the people say: " We won't sub- 
mit to it?" But they do submit to it in Rhode 
Island, and, what is even worse, in old patriotic 
Massachusetts. And they will submit to it 
everywhere, unless they are educated up to the 
point whereby they may avert it by intelligent 
voting. 

Senator Sharon declares that the wealth of the 
country demands that a strong central govern- 
ment should be established as soon as possible. 

Now, why does the wealth of the country- 
demand a central government? Is the wealth 
of this country in danger? This whole people 
are interested, and are determined to protect the 
rights of property. Senator Sharon has no 
reasons for doubt on that score ; and I apprehend 
he has none. But he does fear, and he has 
reason to fear, that when the people get their 
eyes open, so that a subsidized press and the 
demagogues cannot control them, they will undo 
some of the legislation which, during the last 
fifteen years, has filled his pockets with the 
earnings of others, and placed him, and the 
monied interests generally, in opposition to our 
Republican form of government. 



AS A NATION. 65 

It will be observed that so far, in this discus- 
sion, I have used only testimony gathered from 
Republican sources, and the very highest in the 
party at that. If Republican testimony can 
prove anything, then the evidence we have 
adduced proves, not that there is a weak and 
unimportant element working timidly and unsuc- 
cessfully, or, at most, making slow headway, 
toward a monarchy or centralized government, 
but that that element is strong and resolute. It 
proves that the movement is so deep, widespread 
and powerful as to control the Associated Press 
and all the avenues of intelligence; and that it 
is so confident of its accumulating strength that, 
through its own chosen organs, it boasts that it 
can move with such power that no act of Con- 
gress can thwart its purpose ; that it bribes 
or overawes legislatures; that, through the 
press and orators, it controls the unsuspecting 
people as the chess player controls his men upon 
the chess-board; that it has powerful allies in 
despotic old Europe who are reaching across the 
waters of the Atlantic, and that their united 
efforts are hurrying our stately ship along the 
fatal tide toward a Niagara where, if the people 
do not seize the helm and change her course, 
she will soon pass beyond their reach in the wild, 
surging torrent above the brink where the plunge 
and roar of the cataract is heard below. 



66 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



FIRST STEPS TAKEN TOWARD DESPOTISM. 



Those who have not studied the movements 
of the money power, in the United States for the 
last twenty years, feel perfectly secure in the 
possession of the right of franchise. They have 
a legal right to vote now, and they cannot under- 
stand how any power on earth can take it from 
them. The demand of Senator Sharon, the repre- 
sentative of the money power, that the wealth- 
controlling theory shall be incorporated into the 
constitution and laws, does not disturb them; for 
they do not believe that it can be done without 
their consent, which is true, if they guard their 
interest properly: but they are not guarding 
their interests properly, for the simple reason 
that they do not know where to look for danger 
— they do not understand the machinery which 
the money power have in operation to bring 
about that result. 

It should be remembered that the first 
step leading from a genuine Republic, to a 
centralized government and despotism, is the 
impoverishment of the people. Before such a 
change can take place, the masses must be 
reduced to a condition of dependence upon 



AS A NATION. 67 

corporate wealth for a livelihood, which, of 
course, can only be done by means which the 
people do not understand. That those means 
are now being employed by the capitalists is now 
known, and that I shall be able to make you 
understand them, in another lecture, I do not 
doubt. 

At present, however, I shall content myself 
with stating and proving a single important fact, 
viz: The gap between capital and labor is 
widening, and a very large preponderance of the 
difference is in favor of capital. Now, if this 
is true, only one conclusion is deducible from the 
fact, viz: that the conditions are becoming 
favorable to despotism. It has been the boast of 
the money power, through their orators and a 
subsidized press, that 1880 was the most pros- 
perous year in the country's history. They 
make this claim in face of the fact that the 
statistics show that in that year eighty thousand, 
or one-twelfth of the population of New York 
City, were helped by public charity. If that is 
the condition of things in their most prosperous 
season, what may we expect when their hard 
times come? But the figures relied upon to 
prove that the gap is widening between capital 
and labor I rind published in the Chicago Nerws^ 
a Republican journal, December, 18S0. That 
journal speaks as follows: 



68 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

11 The Philadelphia papers are setting up as loud a 
howl over the census of the manufacturing industries of 
that city as the St. Louis journals did over the census 
of its inhabitants. The Philadelphia statistics are for 
the census year, from the first day of June, 1870, to 
May 31st, 1880. The aggregates are as follows, com- 
paring 1880 with 1870: 

1880. 1870. 

No. of establishments, 9,050 8,339 

Capital invested, - $186,688,934 $185,000,357 

Wages paid, - - 63,027,832 61,948,874 

Value of material used, 202,506,644 181,261,223 

Value of manufactured 

products, - - 322,984,461 334,852,458 

Hands employed, - 197,694 138,876 

By this table it will be seen that, in the year 
1870, the capital invested in manufacturing busi- 
ness was $185,000,357, in greenbacks, equal to 
$160,869,875.65 in gold. The manufacturer 
paid for wages and for material, in greenbacks, 
$243,210,097, equal in gold to $211,487,910. 
The product of his manufacture sold for 
$334,852,458 in greenbacks, equal in gold to 
$291,176,050. Leaving his gross profits $79,- 
668,140, or 49 per cent on his investment. 

In 1880, his business was all conducted on a 
gold basis, greenbacks being at par. There was 
invested in manufacturing business, $186,688,934. 
The manufacturers paid for wages and material, 
$265,534,476. The product of his manufacture 
was $322,984,461, leaving his profits $57,449,- 



AS A NATION. 69 

985, or 37 per cent, on his investment — a decrease, 
in his profits on his investment, of 1 2 per cent. 

Now, let us see how the case stands with the 
laborer. His wages for 1870 were $446 per 
hand per year, equal in gold to $388.02. In 
1880, the average wages per hand were $313.75, 
a difference of $74.27 per hand in gold, or a 
decrease of 20 per cent. 

In the above calculation I have not taken into 
account the interest on the manufacturer's invest- 
ment, which would reduce his profits; but the 
interest would be the same in the former as in 
the latter decade, which would leave the ratio 
between the manufacturer and laborer unchanged. 

The business boom of 1880 has appeared in 
bold head-lines in nearly every newspaper in the 
country for the last two years. The politicians 
have shouted themselves hoarse telling the people 
that the country was never so prosperous as at 
the present time. I ask you to study the figures 
I have here given you. They appear in Repub- 
lican handwriting. 

The calculation is made upon a gold basis, 
and there is no escape for them on the inflation 
dodge, which they have so often used in difficult 
cases. 

The fact stands out clear and strong that the 
gap between capital and labor is widening. For, 
while the manufacturer's profits have fallen off 



70 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

only 12 per cent in the last decade, wages have 
fallen 20 per cent., thus making a difference in 
favor of capital, and against labor, of 8 per cent. ! 
That is what the business boom of 1880 has 
brought you. 






AS A NATION. 7 1 



LECTURE III. 
beecher's happy family. 

BELCHER'S HAPPY FAMILY — INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL AND THE 
NEW YORK WORLD ON LABOR AND LIBERTY — THE SENATE 
INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE — THE CONDITION OF THE LABOR- 
ERS EST RHODE ISLAND— COL. MORAN'S CASE— HON. THOMAS 
DAVIS' CASE — DANIEL DONOVAN'S CASE — THE COMMITTEE 
DECLINE TO RECOMMEND LEGISLATION FOR THE RELIEF OF 
THE OPPRESSED. 

Taking up the thread of argument where I 
left it in my last lecture, I will call your attention 
to the fact that, according to the figures of the 
table therein given, the average wages of those 
employed in the manufacturing business, in the 
grand old Quaker City — Philadelphia — noted for 
her humane principles and practices, is only 
about one dollar and four cents for each working 
day. 

Well, according to the preaching of the most 
popular divine on earth — H. W. Beecher — one 
dollar a day is all-sufficient! Hear him: 

" Is not a dollar a day enough to buy bread ? Water 
costs nothing; and a man who cannot live on bread, is 
not fit to live. A family may live, laugh, love, and be 



7 2 



WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



happy, that eats bread in the morning, with good 
water, and water and good bread at noon, and water 
and bread at night." 

Henry Ward Beecher has become a cold- 
blooded aristocrat, and ally of the money power. 
Let the light of honest figures shine upon that 
calculation of his! We will suppose his happy 
family to consist of six members, all told — the 
man, his wife, and four children — which is by no 
means a large family. 



We will clothe the man for one year, 


as fol- 


lows: 




One pair kip boots, .... 


$4.00 


Repairs on same, 




2.00 


One winter hat, - 




2.00 


One summer hat, 




1. 00 


Two undershirts, 50c, 




1. 00 


One bosom shirt, 




!- 2 5 


Three shirts for e very-day wear, $1, 




3.00 


One pair mittens, 




1. 00 


One pair pantaloons, .... 




4.00 


One coat, ...... 




8.00 


One vest, 




2.50 


Two pair overalls, 75c, 




1.50 


Six pair socks, 20c, - 




1.20 






$32.45 



AS A NA1 


^ION 




73 


The Wife- 








One Sunday hat, 






$ 4.00 


One common, - 






1.50 


One dress, made of dress 


goods 


h $5 


; for 


making, $5, 






10.00 


Two pairs of shoes, $2, 






4.00 


Repairs on same, 






2.00 


One winter cloak, 






8.00 


One summer cloak, - 






5.00 


One underskirt, 






2.00 


Cotton goods for underwea 


*, ■ 




6.00 


Five pairs hose, 25 c, 






1.25 



No person acquainted with the neces- 
sary expense of children's clothing, 
school books, doctor's bills, etc., would 
think of figuring the expense of each of 
the four children at less than that of the 
mother, $45.55 which gives for the 
four children ----- 
We will add $6 per month rent, 
Fuel, $4 per month, 

The account would then stand thus : 
Expense of family, one year, 
Income, at $1 a day (working days), 

one year, ..... 

Deficiency of income, 



$45-5. 



$182.20 
72.00 
48.00 

$380.20 
$380.20 

313,00 

$07.20 



74 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

From these figures, it will be seen that the 
family would be obliged to live, not on bread 
and water, but on water alone. The father's 
whole year's wages fall $67.20 short of paying 
for rent, fuel and clothing, such as I have men- 
tioned. Have I put the figures too high ? How 
would one be received in Beecher's Church with 
such clothing as I have provided for this family? 
He would be received with a look of scorn, or 
smile of derision, answers every thoughtful mind. 
Even that scanty supply of clothing, with a 
moderate sum added for rent and fuel, would 
leave the family sixty- seven dollars in debt, 
without one cent with which to buy bread. 
Great God! what an outlook for the mechanics 
of Philadelphia! What does Beecher mean? 
Has the money power reached the pulpit? 

There is no good reason to believe that the 
mechanics are better off in other parts of the 
country than they are in Philadelphia. 

I am aware that the bank element in Massa- 
chusetts made an effort to send the impression 
abroad that the laborers of that State were 
making heavy deposits in the savings banks, and 
hence were prosperous. But all such pretenses 
vanish before the following. I copy from the 
Fourth Annual Report of Henry K. Oliver, 
Chief of Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of 
Labor, page 227: 



AS A NATION. 75 

" Among our native population, the depositors con- 
sist of unmarried mechanics over 21 years of age, and 
few married men with very small families. We have 
personally investigated cases of savings, and invariably 
found this to be true. The number of married men, 
with an average family, who deposit, is very small. 

"The great number of depositors, so often quoted as 
38 in 100 of the population, gives an entirely incorrect 
impression as to the prosperity of the people. It is, 
doubtless, true that nearly every person has, at some 
period of his life, deposited in a savings bank, but the 
attempt to save has more failures than successes. The 
number of withdrawals, for the last five years, are 
equal to more than one-half of the number of deposits, 
and when it is remembered that many of these with- 
drawals are in full, we have a hint of the poverty of 
the people." 

And the following, from page no of same 
report, throws further light on the real condition 
of the laborer in that ancient Commonwealth: 

" The difficulty of procuring these statistics (from 
which it might be deduced on how small a quantity of 
supplies an average family can be maintained), is indi- 
cated by the following letter : 

" * In my attempts to procupe ' cost of living without 
much time in personal inquiries,' I have met one uni- 
form answer from the working mechanics, to-wit: 'we 
have expended all, or more than we have earned.' The 
consciousness of this fact on their part is quite a 
serious difficulty in the way of obtaining, through them, 
a full and complete report of receipts and expenditures. 
They shrink from the revelations which suoh a report 



76 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

must necessarily make of the poverty of their condition, 
and usually aver (what is generally true) that they have 
not time to go into the exact details, even for the pay that 
might be allowed.' All their day being at the disposal 
of their employers, ' their evenings are filled up with 
chores, or inteiruptions, or temporary amusements ; 
' they feel too tired to go into figures.' 

" ' One man to whom I applied, with a family of four 
children and an invalid mother, pleaded the impossi- 
bility of devoting even Sunday to the purpose of an- 
swering my inquiries. He is a member of the Good 
Templars, and also of the Grand Army of the Republic, 
and felt that these had the first claims upon such time 
as he could spare from his other duties.' " 

The truth is, the wages which mechanics receive, 
with few exceptions, are insufficient to purchase 
the necessaries of life, such as are required for 
the health and happiness of families. But most 
mechanics have wives, sons and daughters, even, 
who can help them some; and, with their united 
efforts, they manage to keep soul and body 
together. In short, the condition of the average 
mechanic is only one remove from slavery. 

NEW YORK WORLD ON LABOR. 

Now, let us see how the New York World 
pities them. The World is a leading Demo- 
cratic paper, controlled by August Belmont, 
who has charge of the Rothchilds' bond busi- 
ness in this country. Read the following extract 
from that- paper: 



AS A NATION. 77 

" The American laborer must make up his mind 
henceforth not to be so much better off than the 
European laborer. Men must be content to work for 
less wages. In this way the workingman will be nearer 
to that station in life to which it has pleased God to 
call him." 

Here is one of the leading and most powerful 
Democratic journals in the United States, telling 
the laboring people that they must be reduced 
to a level with the laborers of Europe — that they 
must work for less wages — that that is what 
God intended for them when he created them. 
In other words, that they are fit for nothing else 
but slaves. 

With this insolent and unquestioned evidence 
of the animus of the money power before you, 
can you doubt that, sooner or later, the capital- 
ists intend to curtail the rights of the laboring 
people by legislation, as they have so often cur- 
tailed them by threatening the loss of employ- 
ment? Do you doubt their ability to do so? 
Well, now let us reason together on that subject. 
We will take Massachusetts in 1873 for an 
example. 

In that year there were over twenty-nine thou- 
sand persons in that State, over eighteen years 
of age, without any employment whatever, and, 
of course, a very large number who could only 
get employment sufficient to keep bod}' and soul 



78 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

• 

together. The voters in that twenty-nine thou- 
sand were entirely helpless. They must obey 
their masters, or starve. 

In that State there are two hundred and ninety- 
two thousand sixhundred and sixty-five persons en- 
gaged in manufacturing and mining; and is it not 
safe to estimate, that, should they be thrown out 
of employment, more than three-fourths of their 
number would be hungry and destitute in less 
than six months, and in a condition to submit to 
almost anything in order to get immediate 
relief? 

Massachusetts polls about two hundred and 
fifty-eight thousand votes; and think you the 
capitalists, with almost the very lives of nearly 
three hundred thousand working people in their 
hands, could not influence the vote of two hun- 
dred and fifty-eight thousand sufficiently to carry 
any measure in a crisis like that of 1873? 

When a man sees famine in the e) es of his 
family, he will do anything to give them relief, 
and trust to the future to right the wrong. 
Strictly speaking, however, he does not regard 
an act which is calculated to stay the gna wings 
of hunger as wrong, but rather as an unpleasant, 
or, maybe, an awful duty forced upon him, by 
a combination ot adverse circumstances, from 
which he hopes soon to extricate himself. 

There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt. 



AS A NATION. 79 

that, in 1873, the capitalists of Massachusetts 
had at least one half of the voting population of 
the State entirely under their control. 

I shall now produce evidence that cannot be 
gainsaid, and which proves, not only the purpose 
of the money power to disfranchise the labor- 
ing people, but that it does not require a crisis 
like that of 1873 to enable it to accomplish that 
purpose; and that it did, to all intents and pur- 
poses, not only disfranchise the people, in great 
numbers, in Massachusetts and other States in 
1878 and 1880, but that it did worse: it forced 
them to vote against their convictions. 

THE SENATE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE. 

The evidence to which I refer is found in a 
report made by a select committee of the United 
States Senate, of which Senator William A. 
Wallace, of Pennsylvania, was Chairman, in 
April, 1880. May every son of toil read it. The 
Committee reported as follows: 

•'Your select committee to inquire into alleged frauds 
in the recent elections, was directed, by the authority 
given it, to inquire whether citizens of any State had 
been dismissed, or threatened with dismissal, from 
employment, or any deprivation of any right or privi- 
lege by reason of his vote, or his intention to vote, at 
the recent elections, or has been otherwise interfered 
with, and whether citizens of the United States were 



80 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

prevented from exercising the elective franchise, or 
forced to use it against their wishes by . any 

unlawful means or practices. The attention of the 
committee was directed, by a number of affidavits upon 
this subject, to the State of Massachusetts, and the 
inquiry was prosecuted there and in the State of Rhode 
Island, where your committee was also pursuing another 
branch of the duty assigned to it by the Senate. . . 

"A meeting of manufacturers was held at Worcester, 
Mass., in the office of Mr. Washburn, Chairman of the 
Republican City Committee. The purpose of this meet- 
ing was to urge the employers of labor to exercise their 
influence. 

" They were asked to call their employees together 
and address them on the issues. This was done in at 
least one case. The action taken at this meeting was- 
spoken of by the employes affected, as being prejudicial 
to their freedom of action, from fear of loss of work, if 
they voted or acted against their employers. The result 
of the meeting, and its action, was a degree of intimida- 
tion to the employe." 

Such was the report of Mr Wallace. 
The committee further reported: 

"Your committee are of the opinion that, in very 
many instances during the late election, the ballot was 
cast by operatives against their own deliberate convic- 
tions, and in favor of the candidates of their employers, 
and that this was the result of a fear of a loss of work 
at the beginning of winter. . . . This action was 
described before your committee as civilized bulldoz- 
ing, and its occurrence was said to be much more 
frequent and effective in the manufacturing villages 
than in the cities.'' 



AS A NATION. 8 1 

Read further: 

"The case of the Manchaug Manufacturing Corpora- 
tion in the county of Worcester was cited as one of 
those in which the policy of civilized bulldozing was 
pursued. The testimony disclosed the following facts : 
Manchaug is a manufacturing village wherein the real 
estate, mills, houses, churches, halls and public build- 
ings are owned by the stock company, which were 
manufacturing linen fabrics. They employed a large 
number of persons as workmen. . . . The number 
of voters at the mill were upward of one hundred. . . . 
All of the managing force, superintendents and book- 
keepers, were Republicans. Many young people, of 
both sexes, were at the mills, and their homes were 
with their parents, in the tenement houses of the cor- 
poration. One case was shown in which a man, who 
had served during the war, occupied one of the com- 
pany's houses, whilst his son and three nieces worked 
in the factory, and lived with him. He describes what 
occurred to him as follows: 

" ' I was not working for the corporation, but I was 
active in the campaign. I was one of the signers of 
the Butler call, and one of the vice-presidents of the 
Butler Club. I contributed two or three dollars to the 
Butler flag-raising, when we were a-going to have a 
good time, Mr. Waters, who had asked for the hall* 
came to my house when I was not at home. My wife 
told me of his being there. Immediately after this a 
notice came from the mill that I must vacate my tene- 
ment within two weeks. It was signed by Robert 
McArthur, and Charles A. Chase, clerk. For two or 
three days nothing was said, and they sent for me to 
come to the shop.' The son was notified to quit work, 
and did quit. The effect of this notice to leave, upon 



82 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

men who had families dependent upon them, was to 
take away their freedom of action, and they were 
obliged to vote as their employers required, for they 
had no place to go with their families." 

Hear the Committee further: 

" The ballot-boxes were open boxes, and those in 
charge could see the form and appearance of the ballot 
voted, and they were easily distinguishable apart. The 
result of this close supervision of the vote of the opera- 
tives by their employers, and the fears which prevailed 
among them, lest they should be discharged, very 
materially effected the result in the districts in which 
they voted, and gave to the candidates favored by the 
employer a large number of votes they would not have 
received if perfect freedom of action had been allowed 
to the workman. 

"Your committee examined a number of witnesses 
in regard to the arrangement and manner of voting in 
Webster. Worcester county, by the employes of the 
Slater Manufacturing Company, where several hundred 
men are employed. . . . The proof showed about 
the same state of facts as existed at Manchaug. The 
same was the case at the Douglas Axe Factory, where 
agents of the company stood at the door of the election 
house, watched every one of the employes who came 
in, passed him the Republican ticket, and told him it 
would be to his interest to vote that ticket." 

The foregoing is a part of the report of that 
committee. Observe the mild language in which 
those awful facts are stated. Yet who can read 
it without a feeling of horror? Who that has 



AS A NATION. 83 

love for his kind can contemplate it with tearless 
eyes? 

The capitalists did not stop at discharging 
voters who were in their employ. They went 
beyond and discharged boys who were not 
voters, because their fathers were active in the 
•campaign against their candidates; and turned 
women and children into the streets, because 
the head of the family had contributed money 
for a Butler flag. The testimony shows that 
one victim of their revenge was not in their 
employ, even; he only lived in a house belonging 
to the company: he exercised the right of an 
American citizen, and a homeless family was the 
penalty he paid. Blaine, Conkling, Logan & 
Co, — where are they? May their tongues blis- 
ter, if they ever utter another word about bull- 
dozing in the South, until they have made some 
effort to stop it in the North. The press — where 
is it ? It is howling about outrages in the South, 
to blind the people as to what is taking place in 
other parts of the country. The treatment 
which those mechanics received, at the hands of 
their employers, was worse than disfranchise- 
ment : for they were not on\y prevented from 
voting for the candidate of their choice, but were 
compelled to vote for the candidate opposed to 
them. So, should the less dependent people, 
who are not employed as laborers, come to their 



84 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

rescue with their votes, the laborer is forced to 
vote against them. He is not only powerless to 
help extricate himself from his deplorable situ- 
ation, but whatever power there is, in his ballot^ 
is added to that of the capitalist. He is a tool 
in the hands of his oppressor. In other words^ 
he is compelled to apply the lighted torch to the 
funeral pile of his own liberties. 

THE CONDITION OF THE LABORERS IN RHODE 
ISLAND. 

That same committee investigated Rhode 
Island, and found the following law upon the 
statute book of that State: 

"Section i. The two following classes of persons 
have, by the constitution — the first, as registered, and 
second, as unregistered, voters — a right to vote in the 
election of all civil officers, and on all questions, in all 
legally organized town, ward or district meetings : 

" First. Every native male citizen of the United 
States of the age of twenty-one years, and who has had 
his residence and home in this State two years. . . * 
Whose name shall be registered in the office of the 
clerk of the town where he resides, on of before the 
last day of December next preceding the time of his 
voting, and who shall show, by legal proof, that he has 
for, and within the year next preceding the time he 
shall offer to vote, paid a tax or taxes assessed against 
him in any town or city in that State to the amount of 
one dollar, including in such tax or taxes a tax upon 
his property in the town in which he shall offer to vote* 



AS A NATION. 55 

valued at least at one hundred and thirty-four dollars. 
" Second. Every male citizen of the United States, 
of the age of twenty-one years, who has had his home 
and residence in this State for one year, . . . and 
who is really and truly possessed, in his own right, of 
real estate in such town or city of the value of one hun- 
dred dollars over and above all incumbrances, or which 
shall rent for seven dollars per annum over and above 
any rent reserved, or the interest on any incumbrance 
thereon, being an estate in fee simple, fee tail for the 
life of any person, or an estate in reversion or remainder, 
which qualifies no other person to vote, the conveyance 
of which estate, if by deed, shall have been recorded at 
least ninety days." 

It will be seen, by the law here quoted, that, 
in the State of Rhode Island, a man must own 
at least one hundred and thirty-four dollars 
worth of real estate *to entitle him to vote. 

Some idea of the beneficent effects of that law 
may be gathered from the testimony taken by 
the committee last mentioned. The committee, 
referring to Col. James Moran, of Providence, 
proceeds : 

" Lived here twenty-eight years. . . . Entered 
service of United States from Rhode Island. 
Commissioned as second lieutenant ; promoted to cap- 
taincy; honorably discharged; held an election for 
officials in Rhode Island in his company in the army, 
but could not vote himself; was a voter once, because 
he owned real estate; has lost it, and cannot vote 
now." 



WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



Take another case reported, that of Hon. 
Thomas Davis, formerly a member of Congress 
from Rhode Island: 

" Live in Providence ; . . . seventy-five years 
old; a manufacturing jeweler ; been in both branches 
of the legislature a number of times; member of Con- 
gress from Rhode Island in 1853-4; then owned real 
estate; I am not now a qualified voter; I failed in 
business, and the title to my property passed to my 
assignees, and I cannot now vote ; wealth controls 
suffrage in Rhode Island ; money is all-powerful here — 
it can overwhelm public sentiment at any time here ; 
have been both a Republican and Democrat, but have 
always advocated the repeal of the restriction." 

daniel Donovan's case. 

The committee report Daniel Donovan's testi- 
mony as follows: 

11 Came from Connecticut ; lived in United States 
since five years old ; am a skilled mechanic ; ten of us 
work together in one room in our factory ; the highest 
grade room in it ; six of the ten . . . cannot vote for 
the want of land." 

Now, look upon this picture! Ten skilled 
mechanics! Six of them occupy the highest 
grade room in the factory, which proves that, 
according to the judgment of their employers, 



AS A NATION. 87 

they are among their most skillful workmen. 
Yet they cannot vote, because they do not own 
land. The mechanics of Rhode Island have 
woven some of the finest fabrics that beautify the 
ladies' toilet; they clothe her millionaires in fine 
raiment; they have decked her hills with pal- 
aces, in which their masters walk on velvet car- 
pets, and sleep on beds of down; they have 
cleft granite from her quarries, and filled her 
valleys with factories, and made them vocal 
with the hum of industry; they have pierced her 
hills, and sent the engine whizzing through her 
mountains and across her fields; they have built 
her temples of worship and her ships that sail 
the sea, yea, and spun the cable that, spans 
old ocean. Yet, unless they happen to own 
land they cannot vote, they have created her 
wealth and built up her material prosperity, but 
must leave it to others to control her political 
destiny. 

What a commentary on our Republican govern- 
ment! The testimony taken by that committee 
shows that a house, comfortable for a small 
family, costs two thousand dollars, and upward. 

Under the present regime, not one working- 
man in a thousand can secure a home by his 
own labor. What an outlook for the toiler and 
his children! 

Laboring, suffering men of America! I entreat 



88 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

you to study your condition. If you begin now, 
it can be remedied by concert of action and 
intelligent voting. If you delay much longer, 
the terrible consequences feared by Mr. Lincoln 
will be upon you: the door of advancement, 
now only slightly ajar, will be entirely closed, 
no ray of light will beam upon your future 
pathway, and your children will become homeless 
wanderers upon the earth. 

The Hon. Thomas Davis, seventy-five years 
of age, once a member of Congress — like Gen. 
Grant and many others, he has been both a 
Democrat and a Republican — lost his property, 
and with it his right to vote. Americans ! think 
as you never thought before. No voice was 
more potent in the convention that framed our 
glorious Constitution than that of Benjamin 
Franklin. Yet, had he been a citizen of Rhode 
Island at the age of twenty-one years, he could 
not have cast his vote, with the present law upon 
her statute books. 

Webster, Clay, Lincoln and Greeley were not 
only philanthropists, they were giants in the 
political world. Their great and noble deeds 
will sparkle like diamonds on the brightest pages 
of American history, when oblivion has set her 
everlasting seal upon the last name of the Rhode 
Island Shylocks who refuse to allow their brother 
man equal rights at the ballot box. Yet, neither 



AS A NATION. 89 

of these great and noble patriots were owners of 
real estate in their earlier manhood; and had 
they then been citizens of Rhode Island, could 
not have cast their vote. And, the writer is 
credibly informed, that the incumbrance on 
Daniel Webster's farm, at the time of his death, 
was more than it was worth, if true, he would 
not have been a legal voter in Rhode Island, had he 
been so unfortunate as to have been a citizen of 
that State. And had he been reared on her soil, the 
name of Daniel Webster, which America now 
wears so proudly upon her }^outhful brow, could 
scarcely have been known beyond the limits of 
the town that gave him birth. For, when a man 
cannot vote, he feels his degradation, his inspira- 
tion is gone, his manhood is crushed. 

Could the hearts and minds of the twenty 
thousand disfranchised American citizens within 
the State of Rhode Island be laid bare to the 
gaze of the world, the humiliation, the discour- 
aging thoughts, the chagrin, the heartaches, 
would furnish a picture sad to contemplate. 

In this connection, we will notice briefly 
another case cited by that committee — that of 
Col. James Moran. He entered the service from 
Rhode Island; was promoted to 2d lieutenantcy, 
to captaincy, and so on. While he was in the 
army Rhode Island soldiers who were real estate 
owners voted for State officers. Col. Moran 



90 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

owned no real estate and could not .vote. He 
could and did lead his battalion against the 
foes of the Union, on sanguinary fields. He 
helped to cover that ancient commonwealth with 
immortal glory, returned with laurels won in 
bloody battle strife, but could not cast his vote 
in the State he had honored and defended. 
Should foreign foes combine to destro}^ the prop- 
erty of the rich idlers in Rhode Island, Col. 
Moran and her other disfranchised citizens are the 
very men who would be obliged to defend it at 
the risk of their lives; but should the capitalists 
combine to sell the children of these non-voting 
citizens to the highest bidder, the wretched 
fathers could not vote against it, because they do 
not own real estate, free of all incumbrances, to 
the amount of $134. Great heavens! think of 
it; a man obliged to fight for the rich, but can 
not vote to save his own children from slavery I 
And are they worse off than those who have a 
vote, but are forced to cast it according to the 
wishes of their lords and masters, and thus help 
to fasten the shackles upon their own limbs? 

Now, while we do not pretend that the capi 
talists contemplate, or could succeed in inaugu- 
rating such a system as would sell children into 
slavery, yet, we do contend, that they have man- 
aged to reduce hundreds of thousands of the most 
useful citizens in America, to a condition where 






AS A NATION. 9 1 

they can control them just as effectually. The 
report of that select committee has proven, 
beyond all question that, in those manufacturing 
districts, the result of an election has been and 
can be changed by the employers bulldozing 
their employes. And in our judgment, in a 
closely contested election, the result can be 
changed, in the same manner, in at least eight 
states: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode 
Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, 
Pennsylvania and Ohio. 

THE COMMITTEE DECLINE TO RECOMMEND 

LEGISLATION FOR THE RELIEF OF 

THE OPPRESSED. 

Hear the committee further : 

"Your committee was instructed to inquire and 
report whether it is within the competency of'Congress 
to provide by additional legislation for the more perfect 
right of suffrage to citizens of the United States in all 
the States of the Union. They have performed that 
duty, and whilst they find that improper practices, as 
herein before detailed, exist in the States visited and 
the freedom of choice by voters in those States has 
been interfered with, and persons practically threatened 
with dismissal from employment if they voted in oppo- 
sition to the wishes of their employers, yet they can not 
find that it is within the competency of Congress to 
correct this wrong by additional or any legislation, but 
that, on the contrary, the remedy therefor is to be 



92 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

found with the law-making power of the State in which 
the wrong is perpetrated. Wrongs upon the ballot or 
interferance with the right of suffrage or with the modes 
of the qualifications of voters are questions which are 
to be corrected and controlled by the States, and not 
by Federal Government. Suffrage is under the control 
of the States, and not of the Federal Government. The 
latter has no voters of its own creation, it can not 
qualify voters, nor can it protect voters from wrong by 
inflicting punishment upon those who compel them to 
improperly exercise the right of suffrage ; it may punish 
for crimes committed in regard to the manner of 
voting, but an offense against the right itself must be 
punished under State law, and not by Federal statute. 
The civilized bulldozing which we find to have existed 
in the ancient and honored Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts and Rhode Island is an evil which the people 
of those States must themselves correct, and your com- 
mittee feel that in bringing the facts to the public gase 
they will help to strengthen a sentiment already in 
existence, and aid in crystalizing into such statutory 
enactments of those States as will correct the evil or 
punish its repetition." 

Can the laborers, employed by the corpora- 
tions throughout the United States, read that 
report and not feel that the deepening shades of 
despotism are settling down upon them? It 
matters not whether a majority of that com- 
mittee were Democrats or Republicans. They 
are equally culpable, for neither have made any 
effort to correct the evil; but, by their silence, 
have acquiesced in the decision that it is a 



AS A NATION. 93 

matter not within the jurisdiction of the Federal 
Government; and that, if there is a remedy, it 
is with the State where the wrongs are com- 
mitted. And who knows better than that com- 
mittee, and the United States Congress, that 
every attempt to repeal the law, restricting the 
right of suffrage in Rhode Island, has been 
defeated at the polls in that State. As Thomas 
Davis said, capital can overwhelm sentiment 
there. 

To one who is not an investigator, the declara- 
tion of Senator Sharon that capital must and 
shall control this government, and the sooner it 
is recognized in the constitutian and laws the 
better, seems ridiculous. But already it is recog- 
nized in the constitution and laws of one State, 
and the people are powerless to change it; and a 
committee, emanating from the hio-hest legisla- 
tive body in the United States, tells them that 
no help can come from the general government. 
Thus the doom of Rhode Island is sealed. Those 
who have created most of her wealth, and are 
now adding most to her strength and comfort. 
are disfranchised, and henceforth capital is to 
control her, according to the plan of Senator 
Sharon. 

I doubt not that it was against the wishes of 
those who are misrepresenting the people at 
Washington, to send a committee to investigate 



f ! . WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

those matters; for some of them were holding 
their seats by virtue of that kind of bulldozing. 
But there was such a storm of petitions from the 
people in those localities asking for an investiga- 
tion, that they feared the consequences to them- 
selves if they did not do something. And, of 
course, a committee, appointed under such cir- 
cumstances, found out as little as possible. 

But, from the testimony, which the people, 
showered upon them, they were compelled to 
find, that what they called civilized bulldozing 
had changed the result of elections in Massa- 
chusetts and Rhode Island. But they refused to 
advise Congress to enact laws to protect the 
laboring people, of those states, in the right to 
vote for the candidates of their choice. Yet the 
committee would have us believe that they -were 
desirous that public sentiment should enact laws 
to punish the offenders or prevent the repetition 
of the crime. What duplicity. Think you that 
public seritiment did not deplore those outrages 
upon the dearest rights of that worthy class of 
American citizens. Think you the honest mas- 
ses would have permitted it, had they had the 
power to prevent it. Had not the committee 
already proven that the capitalist could and did 
overwhelm public sentiment in those states. 
And who can doubt that had that com- 
mittee extended their investigations into the 



AS A NATION. 95 

mining and manufacturing districts of other 
states, they would have found the same condi- 
tion of things existing there. Whoever will 
take the trouble to investigate, cannot escape the 
conclusion that a large majority of the voters 
employed by the wealthy corporations in the 
United States are forced by the fear of loss of 
employment to vote against the candidate of 
their choice. Take for an illustration the con- 
tested election case of Washburn and Donelly, 
of Minnesota. The railroads favored the elec- 
tion of Washburn. 

It appears, from testimony taken in that case, 
that in one township one hundred railroad men 
voted. Ninety-nine cast their votes for Wash- 
burn, and one for Donelly. Does any man, in 
his senses, believe that, among that hundred 
voters, only one could be found who desired to 
vote for Donelly? Donelly was the working- 
man's candidate; he was their friend, and they 
knew it; and, had they been left untrammelled, 
not five votes in that hundred would have 
been cast against him. Undoubtedly, the one 
vote cast for him was by pre-arrangcment of the 
company, thinking it would look like rather rough 
bulldozing not to permit one of Donelly 1 s hun- 
dred friends to vote for him. 

The few cases I have here cited truly indicate 
the condition of the employes, from the cooper 



96 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

and machine shop to the railroads and great 
factories. 

Toilers, do you not find yourselves every year 
less capable of resisting the encroachments of 
capital? Do you not see it combined against 
you ? Abraham Lincoln told you to beware, for 
an effort was being made to place capital above 
labor in the structure of this government. Has 
it not already been done ? Scarcely had his last 
funeral dirge been hushed by the solemn wind, 
when the New York Tribune was boasting that 
the financial corporations of the East could over- 
ride the will of this people on twenty-four hours' 
notice. Hear Lincoln again in his message ta 
Congress in 1861 : 

"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. 
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and never could have 
existed, if labor had not first existed. Labor is much 
the superior, and deserves much the higher considera- 
tion." 

Here, it will be observed, that the heart of- 
the great patriot beats in sympathy with the 
people. He truly and philosophically regards 
capital as only the fruit of labor, and, conse- 
quently, deserving only a secondary considera- 
tion. 

While those noble and statesmanlike senti- 
ments are fresh in the memory, read Senator 
Sharon again: 



AS A NATION. 97 

"We need a stronger government; the wealth of the 
country demands it. Without capital and the capital- 
ists, our government would not be worth a fig. The 
wealth of the country has to bear the burdens of the 
government, and shall control it. . . . There shall 
be blood, and rivers of it, before the Administration 
shall change." 

It will here be observed that Senator Sharon 
not only regards capital as deserving much the 
higher consideration, but he regards it the right- 
ful ruler of the nation, and declares that it shall 
rule, though it cost rivers of blood. 

To the son of toil, who earns his bread by the 
sweat of his brow, and who shall think it worth 
his while to read these pages, we have this to 
say, and leave him alone with his thoughts: 
Those detestable sentiments of Senator Sharon, 
standing, as they do, in striking and painful con- 
trast to those of the good Lincoln, mark but too 
clearly the difference in the aims and aspirations 
of the leadership of the Republican party of 
to-day and that of i860. There is no point of 
resemblance. Those threatenings of the money 
power may be angels of mercy putting you 
on your guard, or they may be trumpet- 
tongued messengers of despotism. It depends 
altogether upon how you receive and consider 
them: Remember, they emanate from the high- 
est sources of intelligence, and speak in no uncer- 



98 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

tain tone. They come from a power already 
defiant and fearfully strong. Behind those 
threatenings is a spirit that forebodes evil to our 
laboring people, and makes the present hour one 
of peril to this Republic. May you study the 
situation with the philosophy of statesmen, and 
meet the emergency with the zeal and prompti- 
tude of patriots. 



AS A NATION 99 



LECTURE IV. 

BUSINESS BOOM. 

FARMERS' BUSINESS BOOM— PRICE OP FARM PRODUCE FROM 

1865 to 1869 inclusive, compared with the prices of 1880— 
new york times sees the consequences — richmond (va.) 

STATE AND BOSTON HERALD ENDORSE BULLDOZING— PRESI- 
DENT ARTHUR RECOMMENDS A MONARCHIAL SYSTEM OF CIVIL 
SERVICE— INGERSOLL'S DELUSIVE SPEECH ON STATE LINES. 

So far in my lectures I have paid but little 
attention to the situation of the farming com- 
munity, and I doubt not that while they have 
heard me explain the situation of the mechanic 
and common laborer, they have soliloquized in 
this manner: — "Well that is a bad showing for 
the mechanics and common laborers. It does 
look as though capital was getting the best of 
them. Eight per cent, in favor of capital as 
against labor in a single decade, is not very 
encouraging for the chaps who are obliged to 
work for wages; especially when we consider 
that the comparison is made between the rela- 
tive condition of the laborer and capitalist dur- 
ing the boasted business boom of 1880, and the 
relative condition of the same classes in previous 



IOO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

years in which the capitalists claim there was 
less prosperity. The average wages are pretty 
low, and we don't see much chance for them 
to get on in the world. Then, that bull-dozing 
is rather rough. It is pretty tough to force a 
man to vote for one he knows will, in a 
legislative capacity, work against his interest. 
Then that disfranchising men because they hap- 
pen to lose their property, or denying them the 
privilege of voting because they do not own real 
estate, looks like downright despotism. We are 
sorry for them, but we can't help them. Their 
own State must look after that matter, Then 
we don't see as capital is making headway 
against us, and we won't trouble ourselves about 
that that don't concern us." 

Farmers, let us investigate this matter a little, 
for, in our judgment, the money power is making 
faster headway against you than against any 
other class of American citizens. 

To remove all doubt as to our intention to be 
fair in this investigation, we will not make the 
calculation on any other basis than that of gold. 
Nor will we select the producers' most prosper- 
ous year, and compare it with a } T ear, when the 
price of commodities was the lowest. But we will 
take the average of five years, from 1865 to 1869 
inclusive, and compare that period with the boom 
year of 1880. It cannot then be said that so 



AS A NATION. IOI 

many of the farmers had gone to the army that 
it made it prosperous for those left at home, nor 
that the prices they received were paid in cur- 
rency which was not money. The producers 
and mechanics had returned to their homes, and 
were consuming more of the products of the 
farm than they had been consuming while in the 
army. This one fact well considered will anni- 
hilate all the sophistry used by Shylock and his 
subsidized press, to make the farmers believe that 
it was the absence of men from their farms and 
the demand created by armies in the field that 
caused them to receive high prices for their 
produce : For corn, wheat, pork, beef, and indeed 
nearly all the products of the farm, was more 
than twenty per cent, higher, on a gold basis, in 
the New York market, during the six years 
immediately following the war than they were 
during the four years which the army was kept 
in the field. 

The list of. prices from which I have made 
these calculations will be found on pages 278 
and 279 of the American Almanac for 1878, 
published by the librarian at Washington, and 
purporting to be compiled from the financial 
report of 1863, the Bankers'' Almanac and the 
Commercial and Financial Chronicle. 

The average price of wheat from 1865 to 
1869 inclusive was $2,17.1-2 in currency. The 



102 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

average value of a greenback dollar in gold 
during those years was 70.6- 10c. Below will 
be found the gold price of wheat, oats, mess pork 
and corn in the New York market at the 
respective periods above mentioned: 

1865 to 1869. 1880. 
Wheat, .... $1.53 $!. 4 o 

Oats, - - - .65 .50 

Corn, ----- .86.2-10 .70 

Mess Pork, per brl., - - - 18.72 15.00 



$21.76 $17.60 

From this table it will be seen that the last 
decade, closing with the great business boom of 
1880, brought to the farmer a shrinkage of more 
than twenty per cent, in the gold value of his 
produce. 

To illustrate more clearly the effect upon the 
farmer, we will say that, from 160 acres of land, 
he sells wheat, corn, oats and pork at the average 
price, from 1865 to 1869 and 1880, as follows: 

1865 to 1869. 

No. Price. Am't. 

500 bu. Wheat at $ 1.53 $ 765 

600 bu. Oats at - .65 390 

25 brls Mess Pork, 18.72 860 

1,000 bu Corn at - .86 468 



IS 


80. 


Price. 


Am't. 


$ 1.40 


$ 700 


•5o 


300 


15.00 


700 


.70 


375 



2,483 

2,075 $2,075 



Difference, - $408 



AS A NATION. I03 

It is not a large farmer in the West who raises 
that amount to sell. Leaving the shrinkage in 
the value of his land for discussion in another 
lecture, we find that the difference against such 
a farmer in the shrinkage of the value of the 
products of his labor, which is his capital, is four 
hundred and eight dollars in gold. 

Now, no sane man can fail to see that the 
power of the producing class to get gold is not 
as great, by more than twenty per cent., as it 
was ten years ago. 

But has the result been to change his relations 
to the money power? and, if so, in what way? 
Well, farmers, the purchasing power of your 
labor, or the product of your labor, which is the 
same thing, has decreased more than twenty 
per cent., while the purchasing power of money 
has increased more than twenty per cent, since 
1870. That is to say, a dollar of Shy lock's gold 
will purchase twenty per cent, more of the pro- 
ducts of your labor than it would ten years ago, 
while it will require twenty per cent, more of the 
products of your labor to purchase one dollar of 
his gold. The gap has thus widened forty per 
cent, between you and the national banks, the 
insurance companies, the trust and loan compa- 
nies, the bondholder, and the money power 
generally. 

It is as though you had stood abreast with the 



104 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

money power at a given line, both desirous of 
advancing in the same direction. The money 
power has advanced twenty paces; you have not 
tarried at the line, even; you have fallen back 
twenty paces; you are now forty paces behind in 
the race. 

Farmers, these are startling facts which you 
ought to consider and understand. 

THE NEW YORK TIMES SEES THE CON- 
SEQUENCES. 

The following extract from an article in the 
New York Times, already referred to, shows 
clearly whither the Times thinks the farmers are 
drifting. Read it, farmers : . 

" Those farmers who are land poor must sell and 
become tenants, in place of owners, of the soil. The 
hoarded, idle capital must be invested in these lands* 
and turned over to the poor farmers, who will at once 
be set upon their feet, not to go and loaf about towns 
and villages, spending their money while it may last, 
but to buy, with his money, stock, fertilizers, implements 
and machines, and go to work to cultivate the soil 
profitably. 

That the result looked for, and hoped for, by 
the Times will come is beyond all question, 
unless the farmer learns to guard his own inter- 
ests better in the future than he has in the recent 
past. 



AS A NATION. I05 

In the same article, however, the Times 
expresses the opinion that the process by which 
the farmers are being dispossessed of their lands 
is a slow one. In that the Times is mistaken. 
Its approach is as rapid as it is certain. For, let 
the process continue by which the money power 
pockets twenty per cent, of the producer's earn- 
ings every ten years, and the producers will very 
soon be obliged to sell, and the capitalists will be 
able to purchase what little remains of their 
possessions, and have money left to pay the press 
and demagogues to keep the farmers tearing 
their hair over bulldozing in the South, while 
Shylock manipulates the laws so that one must 
own real estate, in order to be entitled to vote. 
Then we shall have the English system, pure 
and simple. 

Farmers, how do you like to be told that you 
are incapable of farming on your own account, 
and that you must become tenants, like the 
farmers of England and Ireland? Do you doubt 
the purpose of the capitalists to reduce } T ou to a 
condition corresponding to that of the laborers of 
Europe ? Permit me to introduce more evidence 
from the press, representing that element in 
widely-separated States, to show that the senti- 
ment is not confined to any particular locality. 



Io6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

THE RICHMOND (VA.) STATE AND BOSTON 
HERALD ENDORSE BULLDOZING. 

The following is from the Richmond (Va.) 
State : 

" There are defects in our institutions, which can- 
only be remedied by irregular means, and the most 
defective portion of the machinery of our government 
is the elective. The best must govern in every State, 
and will, regardless of any attempt to deprive them of 
that right." 

" Well," say you, " that is from that leading 
Southern journal. Of course, those Southern 
aristocrats hold that the richest are the best, and 
ought to govern." 

Well, we will now hear from Massachusetts, 
the State where Daniel Webster said American 
liberty raised her first voice. 

The Boston Herald is a leading and influen- 
tial journal in the East, and the select committee 
of the senate, in their report, before quoted, 
reported that paper as having declared its senti- 
ments, in 1878, in the following language: 

" They (the capitalists) know that idle hands are 
waiting to do their work. It is not to be expected that 
they will look on indifferently and see their employes 
vote for a destructive like Butler. Human nature is 
much the same in Massachusetts and Mississippi, only 
methods are different. Brain, capital and enterprise 
will tell in any community It is very improper, of 



AS A NATION. 1 07 

course, to intimidate voters. But there is a way of 
giving advice that is quite convincing.'' 

If there is any difference in the sentiments 
of the two papers, I fail to see it. One represents 
the wealthy class in the South, and the other in 
the East, and they both support the wealth-con- 
trolling theory, and, beyond a doubt, they both 
reflect the sentiment dominant in the aristocratic 
circles in their respective localities. 

Now, let us hear from the more central por- 
tion of our republic. The Indianapolis IVews, a 
journal published in Indianapolis, Ind., declares 
as follows: 

1 If the working men had no vote they might be more 
amenable to the teachings of the hard times.'' 

Whither are we drifting as a nation, when our 
leading press and public men can promulgate 
such abominable doctrines, and still continue to 
control the voting masses at every election? 
Why do the people slumber? I can account for 
their apathy in but one way: the surging events 
that moved our people and startled the world, 
from i860 to 1865, were preceded and ushered 
in by proclamations, shouts of armies and the 
loud thundering of artillery. We are now so near 
those events and still feel so deeply their over- 
shadowing presence, that we are almost oblivious 
to occurrences of the present hour, just as impor 



Io8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

tant and far-reaching in their consequences, but 
which are adroitly discussed by the newspapers 
and ushered in by the comparatively silent 
process of legislative enactments in the absence 
of war! This condition of the public mind is 
well understood by the capitalists, and they 
have taken advantage of it, and through the 
press and orators they have kept the air so 
thick with party vaporings, and kept up such a 
clatter and din over dead issues, that the people 
have been unable to hear the tread of approach- 
ing despotism, as it sounded in every wind, nor 
see the signs of danger which appear in every 
quarter of the political heavens. 

In my judgment, history records very few 
more important events than President Arthur's 
first message to Congress — not that it is an able 
state paper (it is very far from it), but that it is 
an adroit one, and is important in that it indexes 
the condition of the American mind, and proves 
beyond all controversy the purpose of the money 
power to establish a despotism on the ruins of 
the republic. 

I extract the following from President Arthur's 
first Message to the American Congress. In 
reference to civil service, he said : 



AS A NATION. I09 

PRESIDENT ARTHUR RECOMMENDS A MONARCH- 
IAL SYSTEM OF CIVIL SERVICE. 

"The measure which with slight variations in detail 
has lately been urged upon the attention of Congress 
and the Executive, has as its principal feature the 
scheme of competitive examination, save for certain 
exceptions which need not here be specified. This 
plan would provide for admission to the service only in 
its lowest grade, and would accordingly demand that 
all vacancies in higher positions should be filled by 
promotion alone. In these particulars it is in conform- 
ity with the existing civil service system of Great 
Britain, and, indeed, the success which has attended 
that system in the country of its birth is the strongest 
argument which has been urged for its adoption here. 
The fact should not, however, be overlooked that there 
are certain features of the English system which have 
not generally been received with favor in this country, 
even among the foremost advocates of civil service 
reform. Among them are: 

1. Tenure of office, which is substantially a life 
tenure. 

2. Limitation of the maximum age at which an appli- 
cant can enter the service, whereby all men in or under 
middle life (probably intended for above) are, with 
some exceptions, rigidly txcluded. 

3. A retiring allowance upon going out of office. 
These three elements are as important factors of the 

problem as any of the others. To eliminate them from 
the English system would effect a radical change in its 
practice. The avowed purpose of that system is to 
induce the educated young men of the country to 
devote their lives to public employment, by an assur- 



I I O WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ance that having once entered upon it and that after 
voluntary retirement they shall be the recipients of an 
annual pension. That this system as an entirety has 
proved very successful in Great Britain seems to be 
generally conceded even by those who once opposed its 
adoption. To a statute which should incorporate all 
its essential features I should feel bound to give 
my approval. But whether it would be for the best 
interests of the public to fix upon an expedient for an 
immediate and extensive application which embraces 
certain features of the English system, but excludes 
or ignores others of equal importance, may be seri- 
ously doubted, even by those who are impressed as 
I am myself with the grave i?nportance of correcting 
the evils which inhere in the present methods of 
appointments." 

The English s}'stem of civil service, says 
President Arthur, has proved to be a great 
success in Great Britain. 

Well, what is the English system ? He tells 
you: The first attractive feature in that admira- 
ble system is, that the officers are appointed for 
life. 

Now, that will do for a monarchy, where the 
poor people are prohibited from voting by a 
property qualification, the same as they are in 
Rhode Island, only more so. The offices are 
beyond the reach of the common citizen, in any 
event; and if the masters, or the better class, as 
the Boston Herald and Virginia State would put 
it, must rule, the length of the term of office 



AS A NATION. Ill 

is a matter of very little consequence to the 
people. They can neither vote to fill them, nor 
vacate them. That one feature is, alone, suffi- 
cient to make the system inviting with the aris- 
tocrats of a monarchy; for it is well adapted to 
the spirit and form of their government. But 
where is the adaptability of such a system to a 
Republic like ours, the essence of which is, and 
whose very existence depends upon, the frequent 
return of political power to the people. To put 
more than one hundred thousand civil officers in 
this government practically beyond the reach, 
directly or indirectly, of the people's votes, is to 
■destroy the distinguishing feature between this 
Republic and the monarchy of Great Britain. 
And, my countrymen, that is just what is intended 
to be done. Think you the President has it in 
his mind that the sons of the poor can reach 
those positions. The people cannot elect them 
to any of those offices. They are filled by 
appointment, and, once appointed, the incumbent 
holds the place for life. 

Think you President Arthur recommends that 
system in the hope of kindling thereby a higher 
ambition in the minds of the youth of America. 
Far from it. Who knows better than he that 
every argument is against such a possibility; and 
every thought growing out of such a proposition 
discouraging to the young; while to the labor- 



112 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ing man on the shady side of life, who has hoped 
to bequeath to his posterity our free institutions 
unimpaired, it is truly disheartening. That 
Arthur himself does not believe that a better 
civil service would result from the adoption of 
that system, is evident from the fact that he has 
not cited a single particular in which faithful 
conduct in office could be secured under the 
English system, that could not be secured under 
our own. 

Indeed, if we were to take his word as con- 
clusive, our civil service system is all that is 
required. For, in his closing remarks on that 
subject (see message), he pays a glowing tribute 
to the industry, ability and honesty of those in the 
civil employ of the government. And what system. 
can do more than to secure industry, ability and 
honesty in office? 

But I have not intended to discuss the merits 
or demerits of our civil service system. I am. 
opposed to it, however, mainly because it gives: 
the President power to appoint about one hun- 
dred thousand of his partizan friends to office, 
and, when they are appointed, may they be ever 
so dishonest or inefficient, the people cannot 
reach them only once in four years, and when 
they do reach them, it is indirectly, through a 
new President. But I am opposed to the English 
system a thousand times more, because, under 



AS A NATION. II3 

that system, the officers in the civil service of 
the government cannot be reached by the people, 
directly nor indirectly. Thus the officers of the 
government are not the servants of the people, 
but their masters, filling the offices as long as 
they see fit, and retiring, pensioned on the people's 
earnings, when it suits their convenience to do so. 
Such a system is not Republicanism; it is des- 
potism. To adopt the English system of civil serv- 
ice in this country is to remove the civil officers 
further from the people. To that I am opposed. I 
want to bring the officers of the government nearer 
to the voters. I want to bring them where they 
can be made to feel the all-mighty power of this 
people. I want it to be the proud boast of the 
American officeholder that he did not seek the 
office, but that the office sought him, and that 
he holds it as a duty to the people who called 
him from among them, because he was of them, 
and his interest being their interest, he knew 
and felt their needs. I want him to feel that all 
the offices belong to the people, and they 
can dispose of them as they see fit, and that 
he is their servant, to be discharged the very 
day he refuses to obey their commands. I 
would have young Americans receive an office 
at the hands of their countrymen, because it is 
unmistakeable evidence of the confidence the 
people have in their ability and honesty. Presi- 



114 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

dent Arthur would have them receive office, 
because they can elect whether they will hold it 
for life, or retire with a pension. 

The President said considerable more in that 
message about civil service reform, but what he 
said was only a clever attempt to mystify his real 
meaning, and make the dose more palatable for the 
people to swallow. To the close observer the fact is 
painfully evident, that civil service reform is a 
pretense only — a centralized government the real 
object. The balance of his talk on civil service 
has no definiteness, and, in fact, is meaningless, 
except so far as it recommends the adoption of 
the English system. That that is his central 
idea, and the real meaning of all his arguments, 
he himself 'has placed beyond doubt by his own 
words. I quote them again, and, if the good 
angels have the power, may they impress them 
deeply into the minds of the people, for they are 
pregnant with awful meaning. In his reference 
to the life tenure, the limitation of the maximum 
age at which an applicant can enter the service, 
and the retiring pension clause, he spoke as fol- 
lows : 

"These three elements are as important factors of 
the problem as any of the others. To eliminate them 
from the English system would effect a radical change 
in its practice. The avowed purpose of that system is 
to induce the educated young men of the country to 



AS A NATION. 1 1 5 

devote their lives to public employment by an assurance 
that having once entered upon it and that after volun- 
tary retirement they shall be the recipients of an 
annual pension. That this system as an entirety has 
proved very successful in Great Britain seems to be 
generally conceded even by those who once opposed 
its adoption. To a statute which should incorporate 
all its essential features I should feel bound to give my 
approval. 

" But whether it would be for the best interests of the 
public to fix upon an expedient for an immediate and 
extensive application which embraces certain features 
of the English system but excludes or ignores others of 
equal importance, may be seriously doubted, even by 
those who are impressed as I am myself with the grave 
importance of correcting the evi?s which inhere in the 
present methods of appointments." 

Here is a specific declaration by the President 
that he will sign a bill that shall incorporate all 
the essential features of the English system (and 
he has given prominence to only the three last 
mentioned) in its entirety, but intimates very 
strongly that he would not sign one which should 
leave out any of the features herein referred to. 

Fellow-citizens, do you not see in those utter- 
ances of President Arthur a partly-hidden and 
devilish scheme, by which he and his coadjutors 
arc engrafting all the essential features of a cen- 
tralized government into our Republican system? 
Do you not discover the foul plot, which the 
capitalists of two hemispheres have laid, to make 



Il6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

this government a monarchy in everything but 
the name? 

All this is being: clone under the guise of the 
purest patriotism. It can be accomplished in no 
other way. This people are patriotic, and if they 
really knew that a blow was being aimetl at 
Republican institutions it would kindle their wrath 
to such a heat, as to make it intolerable for those 
who sought to strike the blow. Hence, one 
important part of the policy of the capitalists is 
to feign great prosperity for the people, to keep 
them dazzled with overdrawn pictures of the 
country's growing greatness, and their faith 
strong in the patriotic motives of the leaders cl 
the dominant party. While the people can be 
kept in that state of mind, they will allow them- 
selves to drift on and on, in the one fatal direc- 
tion, without making an effort to discover the 
landmarks which indicate their nearness to 
the vortex into which the nations of Europe 
have plunged, and from which, if they escape, 
it will be through waves of a red sea. In 
short, the polic3 T of the money power, condensed, 
is to Lull and Lure. And naturally enough, for 
the accomplishment of their purpose, they select 
the fittest instruments within their reach. The 
Associated Press, which is admitted to be con- 
trolled by them, is probably the most potent- 
Next, are popular orators. 



AS A NATION. 117 



ingersoll's delusive speech on state 

LINES. 



And if any are disposed to question the justice 
of my accusation, or the wisdom of their dis- 
crimination in that particular, let them read an 
extract, which I copy entire, from pages 58-9-60, 
of a work published by Rhodes & McClure, 
Chicago, entitled Great Speeches, Wit, Wisdom 
and Eloquence, of Col. R. G. Ingersoll. The 
article is entitled Ingersoll's Apt Words on State 
Lines, and is as follows: 

"In old times, in the year of grace, i860, if a man 
wished the army of the United States to pursue a fugi- 
tive slave, then the army could cross a State line. 
Whenever it has been necessary to deprive some 
human being of a right, then we had a right to cross 
State lines. But whenever we wished to strike the 
shackles of slavery from a human being, we had no 
right to cross a State line. In other words, when you 
want to do a mean thing, you can step over the line. 
But, if your object is a good one, you shall not do it. 
This doctrine of State Sovereignty is the meanest doc- 
trine that was ever lodged in the American mind. It 
is political poison ; and if this country is destroyed, 
that doctrine will have done as much toward it as any 
other one thing. I believe the Union one, absolutely. 
The Dcmoc?-at tells me that, when I am away from home, 
the government will protect me ; but when I am at 
home, when I am sitting around the family fireside of 
the nation, then the government cannot protect me — 
that I must leave if I want protection. Now, I denounce 



Il8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

that doctrine. For instance : we are at war with 
another country, and the American nation comes to me 
and says, ' We want you.' I say, ' I won't go.' They 
draft me — put some names in a wheel, and a man turns 
it, and another man pulls out a paper, and he says, 
'Come / ' I go, and I fight for the flag. When the war 
-is over, I go back to my State. Now, let us admit that 
the war has been unpopular, and when I got to the 
State, that State wished to trample upon my rights, and I 

CRIED OUT TO MY GOVERNMENT, ' COME AND DEFEND 

me — you made me defend you ! ' what ought the govern- 
ment to do ? 

" I only owe that government allegiance that owes 
me protection. Protection is the other side of the 
bargain ; that is what it must be ; and if a government 
ought to protect even the man that it drafts, what 
ought it to do for the volunteer — the man who holds 
his wife for a moment in a tremulous embrace and 
kisses his children, wets their cheeks with his tears, 
shoulders his musket, goes to the field, and says * Here 
I am to uphold the flag?' 

"A nation that will not protect such a protector is a dis- 
grace to mankind, a?id its flag a dirty rag that contaminates 
the air in which it waves. I believe in a government 
with an arm long enough to reach the collar of any 
rascal beneath its flag. I want it with an arm long 
enough and a sword sharp enough to strike down 
tyranny wherever it may raise its snaky head. 

"I want a government that can hear the faintest cries 
of its humblest citizen. I want a nation that will protect 
a freedman standing in the sun by his little cabin just as 
quick as it would protect Vanderbilt in a palace of 
marble and gold 



AS A NATION. II9 

11 I believe in a government that can cross a State 
line on an errand of mercy. I believe in a government 
that can cross a State line when it wishes to do justice. 
I do not believe that a sword turns to air at a State line. 
I want a government that will protect me. I am here 
in Rockford, ill., to-day; Do I stand here because the 
flag of Illinois is above me? I want no flag of Illinois, 
and if I were to see it I should not know it. I am here 
to-day under the folds of the flag of my country, for 
which more good, blessed blood has been shed than 
for any other flag that waves in this world. I have as 
much right to speak here as if I had been born right 
here. That is the country in which I believe. That is 
the nation that commands my respect that protects 
all." 

Again on page 80 of the same book I find 
these words: 

" I want to see him a man feeling that he is a king 
by divine right of living in the Republic. And every 
man here is just a little bit a king. You know every 
man here is a part of the sovereign power. 

On page 83 I also find the following: 

"All who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours 
is the one flag that has in reality written upon it ' Lib- 
erty, Fraternity, Equality' — the three grandest words 
in all the languages of men. Liberty! Give to every 
man the fruit of his own labor, the labor of his hand 
and of his brain. Fraternity ! Every man in the right is 
my brother. Equality! The rights of all are equal — no 
race, no color, no previous condition change the rights 
of men. The Declaration of Independence //as at last been 
carried out in letter and spirit." 



120 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

On pages 30 and 31, Part Second, appear the 
following words: 

11 1 am for the Republican party, because it says the 
Government has as much right, as much power, to protect its 
citizens at home as abroad. The Republican party don't 
say you have to go away from home to get the protec- 
tion of the Government. The Democratic party says 
the Government can't march its troops into the South 
to protect the rights of the citizens. It is a lie. The 
Government claims the right, and it is conceded that 
the Government has the right, to go to your house 
while you are sitting by your fireside, with your wife 
and children about you, and the old lady knitting, and 
the cat playing with the yarn, and everybody happy and 
sweet, the Government claims the right to go to your 
fireside and take you by force and put you into the 
army, take you down into the valley and shadow of hell, set 
you down by the ruddy, roaring guns, and make you fight for 
your flag. 

" Now that being so, when the war is over and your 
country is victorious, and you go back to your home and 
a lot of Democrats want to trample upon your rights, I 
want to know if the Government that took you from your 
fireside and made you fight for it, I wa?it to know if it is not 
bound to fight for you ? The flag that will not protect its 
protectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in 
which it waves. The government that will not defend 
its defenders is a disgrace to the nations of the world. 

"I am a Republican because the Republican party says we 
will protect the rights of American citizens at home, and if 
necessary we will march an army into any State to protect 
the rights of the humblest citizen i?i that State." 



AS A NATION. 12 T 

I have quoted thus lengthily from Col. Inger- 
soll in order to give the reader a fair sample of 
his political oratory. The political faith and 
sentiments professed and expressed in the 
extracts here quoted may be summed up as 
follows : 

First, He believes that the general Govern- 
ment has the power to protect the rights of its 
humblest citizen in every inch of territory over 
which the grand old flag waves. 

Second, He believes that naturally we have 
equal rights, and that Government ought to pro- 
tect every citizen in the enjoyment of those 
rights ; that under the law no privilege should be 
granted to Vanderbilt in his palace of marble 
and gold that is not vouchsafed to the humblest 
citizen in the remotest corner of the United 
States. 

Third, Those rights are so sacred that if one 
class of citizens interferes to deprive another 
class of the enjoyment and free exercise of these 
rights, it is the plain duty of the Government to 
march an army, if need be, across State lines to 
prevent such interference. 

Fourth, That such protection is due to the 
citizens of a country on the ground that a man 
does not naturally owe allegiance to a govern- 
ment that will not protect him. If the govern- 
ment calls upon the citizen to 'protect //, and he 



122 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

is obliged to respond, then, when his rights are 
trampled upon, and he calls on the government 
for help, the government is bound by every prin- 
ciple of justice and fair play to protect him. 

In short, so opposed is Robert to wrong-doing 
that he wants a government with an arm long 
enough to reach the collar of any rascal beneath 
its flag. So intense is his love of liberty that he 
wants a government with an arm long enough 
and a sword sharp enough to strike down tyranny 
wherever it may raise its snaky head. So pity- 
ing is he, in his nature, that he wants a govern- 
ment so parental in its character as to hear the 
faintest cries of its humblest citizen. 

A high type of manhood, that! Noble senti- 
ments, those ! They stir the highest and holiest 
impulses of the human soul. They find an an- 
swering chord in the bosom of every true friend 
of liberty and right. They appeal to the purest 
morality and the loftiest patriotism. Such senti- 
ments, clothed in the persuasive eloquence of 
Robert Ingersoll, seize and lead the people cap- 
tive, because it is just what they themselves have 
believed with considerable earnestness, but now, 
with enthusiasm; for his oratory has added a 
charm which hitherto had been undiscovered by 
them. They now say to the general govern- 
ment, no State has lines which you may not 
cross on an errand of mercy. And they shout, 



AS A NATION. I 23 

« 

Amen! when he says, the sword does not turn 
to air at a State line. 

Now, to take into careful consideration those 
words of Robert G. Ingersoll, and, in the light of 
all the circumstances under which they were 
uttered, try to divine their meaning and real 
significance, is the imperative duty of every 
American citizen who has been affected by them. 
They are very important, not because they are 
the words of Mr. Ingersoll, but because they 
move the people. The public utterances of 
Robert Ingersoll are multiplied a thousand times, 
and sent to every neighborhood in the land, and 
their power for good or evil is very great. The 
words which I have quoted appear to burn with 
patriotism, and thrill with love of humanity. If 
they truly represent our condition as a nation, 
they are a glorious encomium on our beloved 
government, and ought to exalt our people in the 
eyes of the world. But if they are delusive, and 
misrepresent our condition as a nation, then they 
have a dangerous meaning, and furnish another 
powerful reason for alarm for the safety of our 
institutions. I will consider the subject further 
in mv next lecture. 



124 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



LECTURE V. 

INGERSOLL, REVIEWED. 

INGERSOLL REVIEWED— FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT — THE LOUIS- 
IANA COUNT— THE SUPREME COURT DECIDES THAT THE GOV- 
ERNMENT CANNOT CROSS STATE LINES TO PROTECT VOTERS 
— NUMBER OF MEN EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURING- 
BUSINESS IN EIGHT STATES — INGERSOLL ON CENTRALIZATION 
—SHALL THE TYRANT COME. 

In other days, I looked upon Robert Inger- 
soll as a much better man than most of the 
politicians who have led his party since it turned 
its back on those who gave it being, and who 
finally closed their eyes regretfully on its wan- 
ing virtues.' I believed him to have a higher 
purpose than the men who now control the 
Republican organization. I thought of him 
as having a larger heart, a kindlier nature, a 
whiter soul, yea, a more truthful tongue, than 
they. But could he have been sincere when he 
declared that the Republican party was carrying 
out the Declaration of Independence, that it had 
placed every American citizen on an equal foot- 
ing before the law, and that every man here is 
a part of the sovereign power of the government? 



AS A NATION. 1 25 

He must have known that his statement was not 
true. Who knows better than Robert Ingersoll, 
that from fifteen to thirty thousand of the most 
useful, most industrious and most deserving citi- 
zens of Rhode Island are prohibited, by law, 
from voting? Are they a part of the sovereign 
power of the United States? They live under 
our government, and fight for our flag. Yet 
they are not allowed to vote, and, consequently, 
are no more a part of the sovereign power of this 
government, in the sense in which Mr. Ingersoll 
uses the term, than they would be if they inhab- 
ited the Cannibal Isles of the South Sea. 

Can he be sincere when he says, in substance, 
that the Republican party recognizes the rights of 
rich and poor alike? He says this in the face of 
the fact: that Senator Anthoiry, of Rhode Island, 
is a voter because he is able to own real estate, 
while Col. Moran, of the same State, is not a 
voter because he is not able to own real estate. 
Are those men on an equal footing before the 
law? And who knows better than Col. Ingersoll 
that every attempt to repeal the restrictive clause 
has been defeated by the bulldozing and intrigues 
of the Republican leadership in that State? Did 
Col. Ingersoll mean it, when he said, " The gov- 
ernment that will ask a man to defend it, and 
then will not defend him, is a disgrace to the 
world, its flag a dirty rag," etc.? Was he sin- 



126 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

cere in attributing that sentiment to the Repub- 
can party? 

Well he knows that the government took 
thousands of Rhode Islands' best citizens from 
loving families, and " set them down by the 
ruddy, roaring guns," and that when they returned 
to their own State, war-worn and battle-scarred, 
were not allowed to cast their vote unless they 
owned real estate to the amount of one hundred 
and thirty-four dollars. The Republican, and 
not the Democratic, party trampled upon their 
rights. 

Was Col. Ingersoll truthful when he said to 
the people : 

" The Republican party holds that the Government 
has the right to cross State lines to protect the hum- 
blest of its citizens in the free exercise of their rights? '' 

Let the select committee of the Senate answer. 
That committee, after admitting that the rights 
of citizens in Massachusetts and Rhode Island 
had been trampled upon, that they had been 
forced to vote against their will, &c.» reports as 
follows : 

" Wrongs upon the ballot, or interference with the 
right of suffrage, or with the modes of qualifications of 
the voters, are questions which are to be coj-rected and con- 
trolled by the States, and not by the federal govern- 
ment. SUFFRAGE IS UNDER THE CONTROL 



AS A NATION. I 27 

OF THE STATES, AND NOT OF THE FEDERAL 
GOVERNMENT. The latter has no voters of its own 
creation. It can not define who are voters. It cannot 
qualify voters, nor can it protect voters from wro?ig by 
inflicting punishment vpon those who compel them to improp- 
erly exercise their right of suffrage. . . . The civilized 
bulldozing which we find to have existed in the ancient and 
honored Commonwealth of Massachzisetts and Rhode Island 
is an evil which the people of those States must themselves 
correct" 

Here we have it. The above statement of 
the committee answers Mr. Ingersoll. 

The fact that the rich leadership of the Repub- 
lican party, who pack its conventions, write its 
platforms, dictate its policy, and, in fact, hold 
that organization in the hollow of its hand, 
and toss it about as a boy tosses his marbles, 
have never dissented from the report of that 
committee, is a tacit endorsement of the princi- 
ples therein proclaimed, and a clear contradiction 
of Mr. IngersolPs assertion, that the Republican 
party believes in the right of the General Gov- 
ernment to cross State lines to protect the 
humblest citizen in the free exercise of his rights. 
I will here digress to state that, when I speak of 
the faith of the Republican party, I mean its 
faith as exemplified in the results that follow 
its action as a party. The rank and file of 
the Republican party believe as Ingersoll says 
they do, and would gladly carry out the 



123 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

principles in which they believe, but they 
are thwarted by their leaders. And the trick 
in all this is, that Ingersoll & Co. are hood- 
winking the people into the support of men who 
are diametrically opposed to them in principle, 
and who finally succeed in carrying out a policy 
the very opposite to that which the people 
desire, and which they supposed they are carry- 
ing out by their vote; and herein lies the danger 
to the Republic, and herein lies the wickedness, 
of Ingersoll and his coadjutors. 

A fair inference, from the report of the com- 
mittee, is, that not only were thousands of 
every shade of political opinion, prohibited entirely 
from voting by a restrictive statute, but tens of 
thousands more received a much harsher treat- 
ment than that even. They were not only not 
permitted to vote for the candidate of their own 
choice, but were forced to vote for candidates of 
their masters' choice. 

What can be more cruel than to force a man 
to become an instrument for the destruction of 
his own liberties. The bulldozing was so exten- 
sive, says that committee, as to change results 
in some instances; that is to say, men were 
elected against the wishes of the majority of the 
people. 

It is a sad thought. Most of these voters are 
sensitive as to their rights; they have seen better 



AS A NATION. I 29 

days; at some period in their lives they have 
enjoyed freedom, and tasted the sweets of lib- 
erty; they are men born of noble mothers; they 
can boast of a patriotic ancestry; many of them 
kept step to the music of the Union on gory 
fields, and rejoiced when the chains fell from the 
limbs of the colored slave. Now, they, are 
reduced to this choice — vote as their master dic- 
tates, or see their families starve or beg. The 
husband looks at his wife, the partner of his toil; 
her health is poor; she feels their degradation; her 
look is wan and discouraged; in her arms nestles 
an infant, whose coming was received as a kiss 
from heaven. The house they occupy is owned 
by the corporation ; if the husband votes as his 
conscience dictates, his family will be turned 
into the street. " My God ! " says he, " my 
fragile wife cannot stand fatigue nor worry, and 
to see her without food or shelter would crush 
my soul to the earth; and here is my tender 
cherub — it cannot endure hunger, nor the cold 
winds of winter. There is but one thing for me 
to do, that is, vote as my master dictates." And 
they did it by the ten thousand. 

Now, did Robert Ingersoll speak from his 
heart when he declared he wanted a government 
that could hear the faintest cries of the humblest 
citizen, at the same time intimating that the 



I30 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Republican party represents such a government 
as that? 

Those abused citizens of Massachusetts and 
Rhode Island, who were guilty of no crime but 
that of poverty, cried out for help. And was 
the cry so faint that Mr. Ingersoll and his party 
could not have heard it, had their sense of hear- 
ing been as acute as he would have us believe? 
No! Those poor men sent up a wail of anguish 
loud and prolonged. It was the united voices 
of an outraged people, thundering through the 
land, and reverberating from city wall and moun- 
tain side. 

Now, according to Mr. Ingersoll, the Republi- 
can party must fly across State lines, leap all 
barriers, and give those people relief. Did it do 
it? No; it did no such thing. But a com- 
mittee of the Senate went up there, found out as 
little as they could, and coolly told those voters, 
whose right had been trampled upon by the 
capitalists, that the Federal government could 
do nothing for them — that they must look to 
their own State for relief. 

That committee knew well that, if those 
poor, abused people could have obtained relief 
from their own State, they never would have 
called on the government for help. That com- 
mittee said, in effect, to the capitalists in the 
manufacturing districts throughout the United 



AS A NATION. I3I 

States : " Go on, and force men to vote contrary 
to their convictions; take the bread from their 
mouths in case of refusal; turn defenceless 
women and children out to beg for bread and 
shelter among the snow piles of northern win- 
ters, for the Federal Government will not hinder 
you." 

And has Robert Ingersoll, and the leaders of 
of his party, protested against the report of that 
committee, or taken steps to remedy the evil 
complained of ? No they are silent as the grave 
on bulldozing in the North, but loud as thunder 
in their protestations against bulldozing in the 
South. Are not the rights of the poor people in 
the North as sacred, as the rights of the poor 
people in the South? The poor man's dearest 
and most sacred natural right everywhere, is the 
right to a ballot, and the sovereign power to use 
it as he sees lit. Take from him the ballot, or 
the power to use it according to the dictates of 
his own conscience, and he has no means by 
which he can defend his liberties against the 
encroachments of power, which is ever on the 
allert to oppress him. The committee knew 
that the efforts of those down-trodden men to 
obtain relief in their own states had been unsuc- 
cessful. Then to tell them that the Feeler::! 
Government could do nothing for them, is to 
practically doom them to a cruel despotism, 



I32 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

under the flag they had honored and defended. 
It, in effect, wrenches from their hands, their 
surest and best weapon for defense, and leaves 
them and their children helpless in the hands of 
a monied aristocracy. 

When General Butler was a candidate for the 
governorship of Massachusetts, Harper's Weekly 
quoted the New 2^orh Times approvingly, when 
it said, that according to the estimate of a quiet 
observer, two-fifths of the Republicans of Massa- 
chusetts were Butler men. Two-fifths taken 
from the Republican party of Massachusetts and 
added to the opposition would have carried that 
State against the Republicans by a large major- 
ity. But those Republicans were bulldozed into 
voting their master's ticket, and the State was 
carried by the capitalists, the laboring men 
fearing hunger and starvation, if they refused to 
vote their master's ticket. 

What difference does it make to the voter 
whether he is forced to vote his master's ticket 
at the mouth of the revolver, or whether he is 
brought to time by the slower, but equally sure, 
process of starvation. The result is the same, 
only methods are different, as the Boston Herald 
has it. 



AS A NATION. 1 33 

THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 

The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution 
reads as follows: 

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote, 
shall not be denied or abridged^ by the United States or 
by any State, on account of race, color or previous con- 
dition of servitude." 

Now that amendment is a sort of a two edged 
sword, in the hand of Mr. Ingersoll; which ever 
way he turns it there is a sharp edge towards 
him. For if it does not enfranchise the whites 
as well as the blacks, then what does all his talk 
about the great equal rights party amount to? 
That party fathers the amendment. If the amend- 
ment only means that the right to vote shall not 
be denied or abridged in the South, and has no 
reference to any other section of the country, then 
where is his great national party which, he 
declares, will march an army into any State to 
protect the rights of the humblest American 
citizen? If, on the other hand, the amendment 
was intended to protect all, without regard to 
color or previous condition, as the people thought 
it did when they ratified it, and as Mr. Ingersoll 
would have them infer, then what will he do 
with the report of that committee, which says 
that the Federal Government cannot protect the 



134 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

rights of voters in the States? Common sense 
dictates that, if the fifteenth amendment to the 
Constitution prohibits the disfranchisement of 
the negro, simply because of his color and pre- 
vious condition of servitude, some other excuse 
for disfranchising him could be invented, and his 
liberty destroyed. 

If that view of the amendment is correct, it 
does not afford the colored man much protec- 
tion, after all. But whatever may be the scope 
and meaning of the amendment, Robert Inger- 
soil's stump speeches do not correspond with 
facts, nor truly represent the condition of things 
as they exist. 

Did he mean it when he said he wanted a 
government with an arm long enough to reach 
the collar of any rascal beneath the flag? Is a 
man who turns defenseless women and children 
into the streets, because the head of the family 
exercises the dearest and most sacred right of 
an American citizen, a rascal? The capitalists 
of Massachusetts and Rhode Island are proven 
to have done that, and more; and, in my judg- 
ment, the term rascal is not strong enough: 
they are assassins ; for they have assassinated free 
institutions. They are despots; for they have 
trampled on the dearest right of their fellow man, 
and disregarded the most sacred attributes of 
citizenship. They have set at naught the Con- 



AS A NATION. 1 35 

stitution of their country, and have overthrown 
Republican government, in the very womb of its 
origin, and beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill 
Monument, whose enduring shaft marks the spot 
where American liberty struggled into life. 

Now, whv does not Mr. Ingersoll call on his 
government to stretch forth its mighty arm, and 
collar those enemies of their race — those cruel 
tyrants who never fought for the flag — and com- 
pel them to take their heel from the necks of 
those citizens of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 
many of whom are sufferers from diseases 
contracted in the service of their country? Why 
does he not ask his Republican party to bring 
down its ponderous fist on that " snaky -headed 
tyrant 1 '' which is striking his poisonous fangs 
deep into the very heart of New England? 
Why, sir, the Republican party lives, breathes 
and has its being through the influence of that 
conscienceless money power. Its love for the 
people died with Lincoln and the rest of its 
noble founders. 

THE LOUISIANA COUNT. 

It would seem that the arguments, which I 
have already produced, ought to satisfy reasona- 
ble men that the government is drifting toward 
a despotism, and that, if Robert Ingersoll is 



I36 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

sincere in his utterances, he knows as little 
about the real situation as the average voter. 

But I owe it to freedom, which is being betrayed, 
to place before you one more argument on this 
point, which, if well considered, will banish from 
the domain of respectful consideration the whole 
mass of flimsy, yet ingeniously invented, argu- 
ments by which the leaders of the old parties are 
lulling the people into a feeling of security, while 
they lure them on to the destruction of their own 
liberties. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes and 
Samuel J. Tilden were candidates for the Presi- 
dency — Hayes, Republican; Tilden, Democrat. 
The vote was close; and Louisiana, South Caro- 
lina and Florida were claimed to be doubtful, 
and the result in those States was looked for 
with intense anxiety by both parties. The case 
of Louisiana is sufficient for my present purpose. 

I will not here produce the voluminous testi- 
mony, which each party had taken to prove that 
they had carried the State. But inasmuch as I 
was not a supporter of Tilden, I may be per- 
mitted to say that I do not believe that any fair- 
minded man ever read carefully the testimony, 
taken by both sides, and reached any other con- 
clusion than that Tilden was fairly elected and 
ought to have been inaugurated; be that as it 
may, however, one fact is well established by the 
evidence taken by both parties : that according to 



AS A NATION 1 37 

returns made and forwarded to the State Board, 
by Republican officers of election, Louisiana gave 
Tilden a majority of 6,405. Yet notwithstand- 
ing the fact that those returns had been made 
and forwarded by Republicans, when they 
reached the State Returning Board and were 
added up, the result was a Democratic majority, 
which, of course, would make Tilden President. 
Well, that would never do; then, just at the 
opportune moment, there came a rumor that 
there had been bulldozing in Louisiana; some 
poor man had not been allowed to vote, or 
forced to vote against the candidate of his 
choice, and he must be 'protected. A number 
of loyal statesmen went to his rescue, flying 
across State lines on their errand of mercy. 
They soon brought up in the State of Louisiana. 
They began to investigate matters in the name 
of liberty and equal rights, and, to their horror, 
they found that, although the face of the returns 
made and sworn to by the Republicans were all 
right, yet, behind all that, there had been bull- 
dozing. They soon claimed to have unearthed 
the frauds of the bulldozers, reversed results 
to the tune of about ten thousand, which gave 
Hayes nearly five thousand majority. Now, if it 
be claimed and admitted that that was all just 
and proper, that it was necessary to the protec- 
tion of the voters of Louisiana, that so far as 



I38 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

counting in Hayes was concerned the act was 
right and according to the spirit of the Con- 
stitution, and that the errand, that took the 
government across State lines was one of 
mercy, yet, when all the circumstances and all 
the results are considered, it is the most remark- 
able transaction of this generation. Intrigue and 
the changing scenery of American politics have 
produced some horrid pictures of the inconsist- 
encies, treachery and even cruelty of party lead- 
ers in exciting political campaigns, but none half 
so painful and disheartening as that of the 
Republican leaders in the Louisiana muddle. 
Qur liberties have been threatened — tyranny has 
often raised its u snaky head" here and there — but 
never in such a defiant manner as in Louisi- 
ana in 1876. Right there that snaky-headed 
tyrant, under the guise of equal rights, dealt 
Republican liberty her first real staggering 
blow. It was an epoch in American history. 
There had been bulldozing by individuals and 
by corporations, but never before did the Fed- 
eral Government bulldoze a whole State. 

After returns made by Republican officers of 
election had given the State to Tilden, the Gov- 
ernment bulldozed the Democrats of Louisiana 
and gave it to Hayes, then turned on the Repub- 
licans of Louisiana, and kicked their Governor 
out. The same votes that made Hayes Presi- 



AS A NATION. 1 39 

dent of the United States made Kellogg governor 
of Louisiana. If it was an act of justice to give 
the Republicans the president, it was an act of 
despotism to refuse to give them their governor 
who had been elected by the same voters. Yet 
the Republican leaders did it with all the grace 
imaginable. 

Now, search history for a parallel, even in 
despotic governments. Well, what followed? 
Why, the Republicans of Louisiana felt that they 
had been outraged, and that their dearest rights 
had been trampled upon. They said to the govern- 
ment : " Here, you say we have carried the State of 
Louisiana. Then how is it that we are to be ruled 
by a Democratic governor? Are we not loyal, 
every one of us? Have we not fought for the 
flag in days that ' tried men's souls'? Did we 
not suffer persecution enough at the hands of our 
enemies during the war? Now, after we have 
upheld the government when it was all our lives 
were worth to do it, will it not protect us? Will 
it not guarantee to us our constitutional right to 
a Republican form of government? What have 
we done that we must be turned over to the 
tender mercies of the very men you call rebels, 
and have one of their general's to rule over us 
as governor in place of the him whom we have 
elected? " Such were the just complaints of the 
Republicans in Louisiana. On the other hand, 



IJ r O WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the Democrats of the whole country were 
outraged. - 

THE SUPREME COURT DECIDES THAT THE GOV- 
ERNMENT CANNOT CROSS STATE 
LINES TO PROTECT VOTERS. 

A proposition was made to refer the whole 
matter to the judges of the Supreme Court. 
The Democrats very generally voted for it; and 
the people of all parties believed that the judges 
of the Supreme Court would go behind the 
returns of the State, as the State had gone 
behind the returns of the election precincts, and 
review the whole proceedings of the Returning 
Boards, and decide who had been elected. Yet, 
undoubtedly, the wise ones among the leading 
Democrats knew to the contrary, as did the 
Republicans. A recount would make Tilden 
president and the rich Democrats no more wanted 
him than the Republicans. But, be that as it 
may, the matter was taken under advisement 
by that august tribunal, and every Republican 
judge on the bench decided that the Federal 
Government had no power to go behind returns 
made by a State Board, and they, being in 
the majority, settled the question. 

Mr. Ingersoll declared in substance that the 
government, under Republican rule, will cross 
state lines to protect its humblest citizen. 



AS A NATION. 141 

How rediculous that statement appears in the 
light of that decision, made by the highest 
tribunal known to our laws. 

Now, upon the supposition that Hayes was 
fairly elected, more than seventy-five thousand 
Republican voters in the State of Louisiana were 
disfranchised, and robbed of their birthright, by 
being refused their governor; for the right to 
vote, and have that vote fairly counted, is a 
birthright in a Republic. Upon the supposition 
that the first returns of the Republican officers 
were right, and Tilden had a majority, then 
every Democratic voter in the United States 
was disfranchised. Now, let the reader pause 
and carefully consider the meaning of that pro- 
cedure. What kingly power was ever wielded 
against it own friends in such an infamous and 
despotic manner? Does not the conduct of the 
Republican leaders, in the Louisiana election case, 
prove that this government is in the hands of a 
set of despots, who respect no party or condi- 
tion, will do anything, trample on anything, when 
their own base purposes can be subserved by it ? 
It is a crime against humanity for Robert Inger-. 
soil to mislead a confiding people, as he is doing.' 
We have the evidence of a Senate committee 
and the Republican judges of the Supreme Court 
to prove that, when it is asserted that the Federal 
Government, under the management of Republi- 



I42 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

can leaders, will march an army across State 
lines, to protect the rights of the humblest Amer- 
ican citizen, that the statement is not only false 
as regards a single citizen, but it is false as 
regards the citizens of a State, or a number of 
States. Do not the records, in their own hand- 
writing, prove that Republican government was 
effectually overthrown in Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island and Louisiana? And when the loyal 
defenders of the flag, in those States, begged of 
the government for protection, the Republican 
" sword turned to air at a State line.''' 1 

It will be remembered that the Senate com- 
mittee visited only Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island to look after bulldozing. 

NUMBER OF MEN EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFAC- 
TURING BUSINESS IN ELEVEN STATES. 

Rhode Island, in 1870, had, in round numbers, 
49,000 hands employed in the manufacturing 
business; New Jersey had 75,000, Indiana 58,000, 
Illinois 82,000, Michigan 63,000, Connecticut 
89,000, Missouri 65,000, Massachusetts 279,000, 
Ohio 187,000, Pennsylvania 319,000, New York 
351,000. These figures are given in round num- 
bers, according to the census of 1870 (see 
American Almanac). It will be seen that there 
are ten States having more men employed than 
Rhode Island, and three with a larger average 



AS A NATION. 1 43 

than Massachusetts. If the capitalists can suc- 
cessful!} 7 bulldoze Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 
what can they not do with those States having 
a larger number of bulldozable voters ? 

Now add to the number employed, in the 
eleven States just mentioned, at least two hun- 
dred thousand men employed by the railroad 
corporations, a large majority of whom must 
vote as their masters dictate, and you have a 
problem before you for solution. What is to be 
the final destiny of those who most need protec- 
tion from the attacks of avarice and power? 
The election takes place in November, when busi- 
ness is dull, and laborers are plenty. Already 
the chilling blast is moaning in the eastern for- 
ests, and sweeping across the bleak prairies of 
the West. Winter — cold, stern and pitiless — is 
closing in on the needy poor, who dare not 
offend those who can close the door to their 
storehouse of provisions, and thereby acid the 
pinching cold of winter to the cruel tortures 
of hunger. 

Here let the laborer pause and ask himself 
what the chances are for him, under such circum- 
stances, to secure a fair representation of his 
interests on the floor of the American Con- 
gress. While this thought is in your mind I 
will add a statement, the truth and force of 
which will be felt by every well informed 



144 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

citizen, in the farming districts throughout the 
West. In my recent journeyings through 
several States, the number of cases which were 
reported to me^ by reliable authority, where the 
votes of farmers are influenced by those who 
hold mortgages against their farms, is truly 
appallling. Why, a majority of the laboring 
population of the United States are practically 
disfranchised now, and all that is needed to save 
their masters the trouble of bulldozing them, at 
every election, is to have the fact of their dis- 
franchisement incorporated into the Constitution 
and laws, as Senator Sharron advises. 

Fellow-citizens, the sun never pursued a 
more undeviating course toward the West than 
the Federal Government is pursuing toward that 
result. 'Tis over such a volcano as this that the 
Shylock politicians would lull this people to sleep. 
Now, laborers, in the hush of a thoughtful hour, 
when the mind rests from the turmoil of the busy 
da} 7 , ponder the facts I have given }'ou and 
answer this question to your own soul: When- 
ever American citizens have been denied the 
right of a free ballot and asked to be pro- 
tected from the power of cruel avarice and the 
tyranny of politicians, has not the Republican 
sword turned to air at a State line ever since the 
party forsook its noble founders — Greeley, Chase, 
Sumner — for such men as Blaine, Grant & Co. ? 



AS A NATION. 1 45 

Does not every excuse, invented by the money 
power, for the purpose of continuing the despotic 
reign of the present oligarchy, appear base and 
puerile, in the light of its own history, since 1865 ? 
Their every argument vanishes at the touch 
of truth and reason, as night vanishes at the 
touch of morning beams. 

INGERSOLL ON CENTRALIZATION. 

The following remarks by Robert Ingersoll 
must not be omitted. They will be found on 
page 68 of book before mentioned: 

" I want the power where somebody can use it; as 
long as a man is responsible to the people there is no 
ferar of despotism. There is no reigning family in this 
country. We are, all of us, kings. We are the reign- 
ing family, and when any man talks about despotism 
you may be sure he wants to steal or be up to some 
devilment. If we have any sense we have got to have 
localization, of brain. If we have any power we must 
have centralization. We want centralization of the right 
kind. The man we choose for our head wants the 
army in one hand and the navy in the other, and to exe- 
cute the supreme will of the supreme people.'' 

Now, what can Mr. Ingersoll mean when he 
says he wants the man we elect for our head 
to have the army in one hand and the navy in 
the other, and to enforce the supreme will of 
the supreme people? 



I46 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

In sec. 2, of Article II, of the Constitution of 
the United States, I find the following: 

" The President shall be commander and chief of 
the army and navy of the United States, and of the 
militia of the several States, when called into the 
actual service of the United States." 

And in Sec. 3 I find the words: 

11 He (the President) shall take care that the laws are 
faithfully executed." 

And Sec. 2, Art. IV, reads as follows: 

" The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States." 

Here we have the supreme law of the land 
declaring that the citizens of each State shall be 
entitled to all privileges of citizens of the several 
States. And the supreme power of the supreme 
people, centered in that immortal instrument, the 
Constitution of the United States, demands that 
the President see that that law be faithfully 
executed. 

Now, why, in the name of common sense, do 
they want more power concentrated in the hands 
of the President ? He alrea'd}* possesses the power, 
and is bound by his oath of office, to see 
that the citizens of all the States have equal 
privileges, and that none of their rights are 
abridged. 



AS A NATION. 1 47 

And the American people, by their united 
voice in the Constitution, demand that the 
Federal power Lhall guarantee a Republican 
form of government to every State in this Union. 
These very important laws are all incorporated 
in the Constitution of the United States; and 
should any State make or enforce a law -pre- 
viously made, which should conflict with them, the 
Supreme Court would decide such law unconsti- 
tutional, and the same would be null and void. 
If the president lacks any of the means neces- 
sary to enforce any of the provisions of the 
Constitution, the Constitution itself makes it 
obligatory upon Congress to furnish them. 
The people have invested the executive and 
legislative branches of the government with 
ample power to protect, not only the rights 
of the government against foreign foes, but 
power to protect the political rights of the 
humblest citizen in the remotest corner of 
the United States. Yet, the future writer of 
American political history must record the 
shameful and discouraging fact that, when the 
loyal citizens and steadfast friends of Republican 
institutions in the states of Louisiana, Massachu- 
setts and Rhode Island asked for protection the 
Government refused. It heard not the cries of 
its noble defenders in the dread hour when their 
liberties were being stricken down. I will not 



148 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

say it of the masses, but there was a tacit 
approval by Congress and almost the entire 
leadership of the Republican party. Now, in 
view of this fact what must we conclude that 
this demand for a stronger government means ? 
It means not that the Government needs 
more power, but that the people must have less. 
It means to remove the governing power from 
the circumference to the center. 

The power of the Government is almost des- 
potic now, and would be entirely so were it not 
for its frequent returns to the people. To pre- 
vent those frequent returns to the people, a 
desperate and determined effort is being made. 
The money power has been working with tre- 
mendous energy, for the last fifteen years, to 
centralize this Government against the people; 
and that success is likely to crown their efforts 
is painfully evident from the manner in which 
President Arthur's message is received by the 
leading journals, and from the apathy of the people. 
I have before me, at present writing, the New 
York Sun (Dem.) and the Leavenworth Times 
(Rep.), both prominent in their respective par- 
ties. Both unreservedly endorse the message 
and offer no criticisms on the president's 
endorsement of the English system of civil 
service. 

That they should be silent on that subject is 



AS A NATION. 1 49 

not at all surprising; for the leading press has 
combined with the money power — it is a part 
of the money power — to destroy the liberties of 
this people. 

The combined efforts of capitalists, on both 
sides of the sea, to establish by degrees an aris- 
tocratic government in this country, has culmi- 
nated in a president's message, in which the 
chief executive of free America, unqualifiedly 
advises the adoption of a monarchial system of 
civil service which is anti-Republican in every 
feature. When a president of the United States 
of America, can recommend that more than one 
hundred thousand officers of the Government be 
put beyond the power of the people to control 
them, and not feel the very earth beneath his feet 
quake with an outraged nation's wrath, may 
we not fear that the world's last great Republic 
is passing the zenith of her glory, her sun gliding- 
down the western sky, and that a night dark and 
starless is soon to settle down upon our free 
institutions. 

• 

SHALL THE TYRANT COME. 

That message of President Arthur is a feeler 
thix>wn out to see what response will come back 
from the people. If they receive it without 
much complaint we shall soon have that relic of 
barbarism — the English system of civil service — 



150 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

fastened upon us. Soon another step will be 
taken in the same direction, then another, and 
another, until the people awake to find the Gov- 
ernment in the hands of an irresponsible aristoc- 
racy, standing sqarely across the laborers' path- 
way of advancement. 

Fellow-countrymen, seeds, gathered from the 
tyrannical systems of a cruel and despotic past, 
are being scattered by ruthless hands in the green 
fields of Columbia. The tyrant, from whom our 
fathers fled, followed them across the sea. Seven 
dreadful years they grappled with the enemy 
of their liberties, and finally drove him back to 
watch, with malicious dread, their country's 
lengthening strides to greatness. In 1861 the 
quick eye of Lincoln caught a glimpse of the 
tyrant's return. It sent a shiver along the good 
man's nerves, and he warned his countrymen of 
approaching danger. 

That same tyrant is now invited by our presi- 
dent. Shall he come? Shall he set foot upon 
the soil that nurtured a Washington, whose 
sword once cut so deeply into his very vitals? — 
shall he sit in triumph on the grave of a Henry, 
who, with eye lit with more than mortal flame, 
exclaimed, in tones that were heard around 
the world, " Give me liberty or give me death !" 
Shall he be enthroned in the country that 
entombs the ashes of a Jefferson, who penned the 



AS A NATION. 151 

immortal declaration of American Independence, 
which incurred the everlasting hatred of the tyrant 
who is now invited to place his friends and allies 
in a hundred thousand offices in our beloved 
country. 

I beseech our people to thunder their negative 
in the ear of the present Administration, and to 
condemn every aider and abettor in the devilish 
scheme to the shades of private life forever. 
May their mighty No! fall like a thunder-clap 
upon the ear of every despot on earth. May 
their answer ring out from every ballot-box in 
the land, and be borne by friendly gales to every 
sea, and the islands which dot their broad bosom, 
and to every mariner who rides the wave; and in 
every cot and cabin under heaven be heard the 
glad tidings that American freemen have rebuked 
the insolence of capital, and that henceforth the 
country of Washington and Lincoln is dedicated 
to Republican institutions, pure and simple. 



152 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



LECTURE VI. 

THE RAILROAD CORPORATIONS. 

RAILROAD CORPORATIONS— THETR GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS- 
AVARICE THE MOVING PRINCIPLE— UNITED STATES SENATE 
COMMITTE ON THE DANGEROUS POWER OF RAILROADS— RAIL- 
ROADS CAN REDUCE THE VALUE OF PROPERTY MANY HUN- 
DREDS OF MILLIONS— THE WAY THE RAILROADS LOWER THE 
VALUE OF PROPERTY — STANDARD OIL COMPANY — THE RAIL- 
ROADS THREATENING THE SUPREME COURT— THE VAST SWEEP 
OF TERRITORY IN POSSESSION OF RAILROADS — OUR DUTY IN 
THE MATTER. 

The question, " Whither are we drifting as a 
nation? " involves the discussion of many subjects 
which the people have been accustomed to pass 
over comparatively unnoticed, although they are 
vital to their interests, and some of them even 
involve the very existence of free institutions in 
this country. The railroad question is one of that 
character. While it has been talked and written 
about considerably, the people have not thought 
deeply in regard to it. They sometimes find 
fault with unjust discrimination against this or 
that locality, and grumble a little when Jay 
Gould pockets a few millions of the people's 
money and there their greatest anxiety seems to 



AS A NATION. 1 53 

end. They have no adequate conception of what 
it all means: and their apparent dullness does 
not arise from their inability to comprehend the 
subject, were it presented to them in its proper 
light, which is rendered difficult by the fact that 
they are not in a receptive mood, for the danger- 
ous results are lost sight of in admiration of the 
good. The railroads have brought the people 
such unnumbered blessings, that an extortion, 
even if it be large in the aggregate, seems small 
to each individual, when compared to the benefit 
he receives from them. 

GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS. 

The phase of our railroad system, which first 
rivets the attention of the multitude, is magnifi- 
cent and charming. Nor would I have them 
see it otherwise. There is much that is grand 
and soul-stirring in its contemplation. Its 
progress, its vastness, its varied and ever-varying 
achievements are profitable themes for medita- 
tion. Nothing in romance is half so wonderful; 
her highest wrought picture is dull in compari- 
son, and her most fanciful story, told fifty years 
ago, not half so far beyond the range of proba- 
bility as the real history of the American railroad 
system would have been, could a prophetic pen 
have written it at that time. Imagine one, 



154 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

endowed with the power of correct prophesy y 
entering the office of John Quincy Adams, in 
1825, just after he had traveled from Massachu- 
setts to Washington, by coach and on foot, to 
take his seat as chief magistrate of the United 
States, aud saying to the new president, " Sir, 
you have just completed a long and tedious 
journey. But only a few years, and those who 
journey hitherward will elect whether they will 
sit on velvet cushions, or repose on beds of down, 
and travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour. 
Yes, sir; an iron horse shall leave this city, 
dragging a long train of coaches, loaded with 
thousands of human beings; westward bound, 
he will leap the Potomac, the Mississippi, the 
Missouri, and in less hours than you were days 
journeying from your home to this city, he will 
be passing the flying buffalo on the plains o£ 
Kansas, or startling the wild deer in the Rocky 
Mountain glen, as he bounds along his iron path 
to deliver its precious freight at San Francisco. 
Bound northward, he shall leave Washington 
City, sweltering beneath a July's sun. Faster 
than the wind, he travels, skimming the valleys, 
darting through the forests, plunging through 
the hills, and gliding along the rugged mountain 
sides of New England. A few hours, and he is 
flying up the stony steep, and over the frowning 
cliffs, to mingle his warm breath with the frosty 



AS A NATION. 1 55 

air of Mount Washington, in the regions of 
perpetual snow. And his master, who last slept 
in a heat almost tropical, now stands among the 
drifts of snow, whose first flake may have kissed 
the spot before the American nation was born." 
Picture to yourself the incredulous look of the 
venerable statesman, as he listens to so wild a 
story ; and imagine his total lack of faith had the 
prophet proceeded to declare, a that the path 
over which the horse must travel, in the United 
States would be twenty-three miles in length in 
1830, and in 1876 long enough to encircle the 
earth three times around." Yet it is truth, 
though stranger than fiction, and that is the 
bright side of the picture, and the only side seen 
by the multitude: The multitude sees our 
railroad system only as a mammoth enter- 
prise — a glorious triumph of American energy 
and skill — full of beneficence, scattering bless- 
ings everywhere. The frontiersman, who has 
been obliged to haul his produce fifty miles 
to market with a mule team, hails with unspeak- 
able delight the approach of the train which is to 
bring the market to his very door, and double 
the value of his farm and its products ; all at which 
I do not complain; it is natural and right that 
he should feel so; far be it from my desire 
to cultivate anything but a generous spirit 
toward our railroad system. But the time lias 



I$6 t WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

come when the people should take the whole 
matter under consideration. 

Admitting the great usefulness of the railroads, 
yet it is high time that the other side of the pic- 
ture should be shown. The people should look, 
deeply and searchingly, to ascertain the moving 
principle of a power that can construct eighty 
thousand miles of railroad in fifty years, reaching 
every city on the continent, and moving the 
merchandise of fifty million people from ocean to 
lake, and from lake to ocean, with as much com- 
parative ease as an ordinary farmer moves the 
crop of ten acres from field to barn. 

AVARICE THE MOVING PRINCIPLE. 

A hastily scanned picture may look ever so 
fair at a distance, yet a nearer approach and 
closer scrutiny reveal a deadly enemy lurking in 
the background. 

The great moving principle in our railroad 
system is avarice. I do not say that every man 
who ever invested money in a railroad was ava- 
ricious beyond other men — by no means. Nor do I 
say that no man has advocated, or invested money 
in, railroads who had no object in view beyond that 
of money-making — some men may have invested 
their money in railroads from considerations of 



AS A NATION. 1 57 

public good, but they are exceptions, aud very 
rare at that. 

When men meet to discuss the propriety of 
building a railroad through a certain section of 
country, they do not advise that it touch a partic- 
ular settlement to the end that the people residing 
there may have a more convenient way of getting 
their produce to market — that is not the win- 
ning argument — it is only a zephyr, an evening 
breeze, moving gently through the trees — heard, 
but not noticed : the prospect of a paying invest- 
ment is the cyclone that sweeps all before it. 
The all-important question with them is, Will it 
pay in dollars and cents ? 

Was a company ever known to build a rail- 
road to accommodate the people? "No," say 
you; " and I do not blame them." Nor do I 
blame them. I only wish to make 3 7 ou see 
clearly that, the main spur, the controlling power, 
in all railroad enterprise, is love of gain. When 
the people come to feel the full force of this 
truth, they will see more clearly their true rela- 
tions to the railroads, and understand that the 
real motive which sent the engine flying to their 
cities, decked in such beauty, was to get their 
money. While it was understood, by the pro- 
jector of the enterprise, that comforts and conven- 
iences would come to the community as a result) 
yet he considered them as so many inducements 



158 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

for the people to pay their money over to him. 
Well, is that any reason why the people should 
assail the railroads and cripple or discourage 
them? Not in the least; but it is an all-important 
reason why the people should be on their guard. 
Our system of railroads is the result of a combi- 
nation of capital in the hands of men who, as a 
rule, first obtained it, not by practicing benevo- 
lence and returning cent for cent, but by driving 
the sharpest possible bargains, and their greed 
for gain has grown with their multiplied chances 
to get it. 

To say that the railroad corporations, spurred 
on by avarice, and aided by the confidence and 
apathy of the people, have come to be resolute 
and powerful enemies of Republican institutions, 
is to state it very mildly, as the people will dis- 
cover, if they ever undertake to compel them to 
loose their cruel grip upon the throat of this 
nation. 

U. S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE DANGEROUS 
POWER OF THE RAILROADS. 

That I do not overestimate their power or 
disposition to be despotic, will appear from the 
following quotations, which I take from Scrib- 
ner^s Monthly for December, 1880, which 
appeared over the signature of F. B. Thurber, 



AS A NATION. 1 59 

president of the Anti-Monopoly League, in New 
"York: 

" In 1874, the Senate of the United States, in response 
to a general demand, appointed a special committee on 
transportation, composed of William Windom, of Min- 
nesota; John Sherman, of Ohio; Roscoe Conkling, of 
New York; H. G. Davis, of West Virginia ; T. M. Nor- 
wood, of Georgia; J.W.Johnson, of Virginia; John 
H. Mitchell, of Oregon, and S. B. Conover, of Florida. 
The committee occupied the entire summer of 1874 in 
making an exhaustive examination of the subject, and 
in their report we find the following : 

" In the matter of taxation, there are to-day four 
men, representing the four great trunk lines between 
Chicago and New York, who possess, and who not 
nnfrequently exercise, powers which the Congress of 
the United States would not venture to exert. They 
may at any time, and for any reason satisfactory to 
themselves, by a single stroke of the pen, reduce the 
value of property in this country by hundreds of millions 
of dollars. An additional charge of five cents per 
bushel, on the transportation of cereals, would have 
been equivalent to a tax of forty-five millions of dollars 
on the crop of 1873. No Congress would dare to exer- 
cise so vast a power except upon a necessity of the 
most imperative nature, and yet these gentlemen exer- 
cise it whenever it suits their supreme will and pleasure, 
without explanation or apology. With the rapid and 
inevitable progress of combination and consolidation, 
these colossal organizations are daily becoming stronger 
and more imperious. The day is not distant, if it has 
not already arrived, when it will be the duty of the 
statesman to inquire whether there is less danger in 



l6o WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

leaving the property and industrial interests of the 
people thus wholly at the mercy of a few men who 
recognize no responsibility but to their stockholders, 
and no principle of action but personal and corporate 
aggrandizement, than in adding somewhat to the power 
and patronage of a government directly responsible to 
the people, and entirely under their control." — Report 
of United States Senate Committee on Transportation 
Routes, page 158. 

The above quotation explains itself. I onl)r 
desire to concentrate your thought on one state- 
ment made by this committee, viz: 

RAILROADS CAN REDUCE THE VALUE OF PROP- 
ERTY HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS. 

" Four men, representing the four great trunk 
lines between Chicago and New York, can, by a 
single stroke of the pen, lower the value of 
property in the United States many hundred 
millions of dollars." Such a statement, coming 
from a Senate committee, who had every facility 
for ascertaining the truth, ought to stir freemen.. 
A people alive to their interests, and proud 
of their independence, should blush with shame at. 
such startling and humiliating intelligence. A 
nation, not sunken in dangerous apathy, would 
send forth their protestations from farm and mill, 
from bench and pulpit, until the very air was 
throbbing with their indignation. The thought 



AS A NATION. l6l 

that, in less than fifty years, a power has grown 
up among us that can lower the value of property 
in the United States many hundred millions of 
dollars by a single stroke of the pen, and that 
power wielded by four unprincipled speculators, 
who, as the committee say, " recognize no 
principle of action save their own aggrandise- 
ment" is too startling for a people to sleep over 
who really appreciate liberty. 

THE WAY THE RAILROADS LOWER THE VALUE 
OF PROPERTY. 

The manner in which the railroad corporations 
can lower the value of property, and pocket the 
difference, may be seen from the following, which 
we copy from Mr. Thurber's article, above 
referred to: 

" Instead of having rates for freight, they want to 
make special contracts according to a man's profit. 
For instance: a man in Arizona has a mine, and gets 
out a quantity of ore, but he has not facilities for flux- 
ing and smelting it, and must send it to San Francisco. 
He says to the railroad : 

' I want to send my ore up to San Francisco. What 
will you charge me per ton?' 

' How much does it assay ? ' 

' That is none of your business.' 

1 Yes it is ; we want to know how much it assays in 
order to know what to charge you.' 

4 Thirty dollars a ton.' 



1 62 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

' Well we will charge you ten dollars per ton, that 
will leave you twenty dollars.' 

Another man puts the question : 

* What will you take my ore to San Francisco for V 

1 How much does it assay V 

4 That is none of your business.' 

He too must tell, and he says — 

1 Well, it yields three hundred dollars per ton.* 

1 Then we will charge you one hundred dollars a ton 
to take the ore to San Francisco. That leaves you two- 
thirds.' 

The man has no alternative, and pays the money to 
sell his ore. But he becomes a discouraged miner. 
Thus the railroad company is forcing the question as 
to what are the restrictions of a common carrier, and 
whether the mere carrier can be despotic with the peo- 
ple, arbitrary in its rates, and virtually an owner in 
every interest on the line." 

Thus it will be seen that railroad corporations, 
under such circumstances, can pocket just as 
much of the miners' hard earned money as they 
see fit; and, by raising the cost of transporta- 
tion, they can lower the value of his mines almost 
without limit : And their power over most other 
industries is the same. To illustrate: we will 
say a western farmer raises three thousand 
bushels of corn for market. He contracts to 
deliver it in New York City at eighty cents per 
bushel. If the cost of transportatign remains 



AS A NATION. 1 63 

unchanged, his profits will be three hundred 
dollars. But, before wagon-roads are passable, 
the railroad company ,for reasons satisfactory to 
themselves, add five cents per bushel to the cost 
of transportation, which, on the three thousand 
bushels, amounts to one hundred and fifty dollars. 
Thus, between the time the farmer made his 
contract and the time of delivery, the railroad 
company has pocketed one-half the profits on his 
summer's work. And how has the value of his 
farm been affected by the operation? His farm 
is for sale; his price is three thousand dollars. 
A well-informed business man wants to buy, and 
will pay the price if he can become satisfied that 
the farm can be made to yield a profit of ten per 
cent, on the investment. The day before the 
owner could have shown him, right on the face 
of the contract, under which he was to deliver 
his crop of corn, that his profits would be ten per 
cent, on three thousand dollars, and could have 
sold his farm at that price. But the railroad 
company has added five cents per bushel to the 
cost of transportation, and thus taken away one- 
half of that profit. He can now show a ten per 
cent, profit on only fifteen hundred dollars, and, 
upon purely business principles, the would-be 
purchaser refuses to offer more than that sum 
for the farm; whereas, the da}' before he 



164 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

would have regarded it a profitable investment 
at three thousand dollars. 

Thus the farmer has lost the opportunity to 
sell his farm, or is forced to sell it at half price. 
But had he sold it the day before the five cents 
per bushel was added to the cost of transporta- 
tion, the purchaser would have been the loser to 
the same extent. This principle is not hard to 
understand. 

Why is farming land worth more within fifty 
miles of New York City than it is five hundred 
miles away? Surely, distance does not affect the 
power of the land to produce crops clearly, then 
the value of the land is affected by the cost of 
getting the produce to market. Every cent added 
to the cost of freighting the produce to market 
lowers the value of the land on which that pro- 
duce is raised. And this is true, not only with 
regard to land, but the value of all merchandise 
shipped over our railroads is affected in the same 
way. 

Hence, it is seen that the power of the rail- 
road corporations over the value of property in 
the United States is almost absolute; and their 
disposition to use that power is well illustrated 
by the following, from Mr. Thurber's article : 



AS A NATION. 1 65 

STANDARD OIL COMPANY. 

" The testimony, in the Pennsylvania investigation, 
showed that the trunk lines of railroads paid in rebates 
to the Standard Oil Company, within the period of 
eighteen months, ($10,151,218) ten million one hundred 
and fifty-one thousand two hundred and eighteen 
dollars, which was contributed by the roads in the 
following proportions: 
" Total shipments, Oct. 17, 1877, to 

March 31, 1879, barrels, - - 18,556,277 

"Total rebates during that time, 55 

cents (average) per barrel, - $10,151,218.00 

<l Of which there was paid to Standard 
by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 11 
per cent., as per contract, Oct. 17, 

1877, 1,116,633.98 

" Paid by New York Central and Hud- 
son River 21 per cent., as per con- 
tract, Oct. 17, 1877, - - - 2,131,755.78 
" Paid by Erie Railway 21 per cent., 

as per contract, Oct, 17, 1877, - 2,131,755.78 

*' Paid by Pennsylvania Railroad 47 
per cent., as per contract, Oct. 17, 
1877, 17 1-2 months, - - - 4,771,072.46 

" Total rebates, Oct. 17, 1877, to 

March 31, 1879, - $10,151,218.00 

We think of nothing more fitting to say here 
than Mr. Thurber has said in the following ; 

11 It is not strange that the best legal talent of the 
country is permanently retained by corporate interests, 
nor that lawyers should naturally gravitate towards 



1 66 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

politics. Railroads can afford to compensate profess- 
ional men better than private clients can,/<?r the reason 
that their otvn revenues, under the present system are practi- 
cally unlimited, all production and commerce in the sec- 
tions through which they run, being tributary to them, 
and extraordinary expenditure for counsel fees, elec- 
tion expenses or bribery funds, are simply re-imposed 
upon the public. The extent, to which this power to 
tax is exercised, is indicated by the following straws : 
It is little more than fifteen years since Huntington, 
Hopkins, &c, were hardware merchants of limited 
means, in San Francisco. They built the Central 
Pacific Railroad, and deservedly made fortunes, esti- 
mated from three to five millions each. They found 
the railroad enabled them to tax the production and 
commerce of the entire Pacific coast. Twelve years 
have rolled around, and recent estimates, based upon 
legal proceedings, necessary in the estate of Mrs. 
Hopkins, place the partnership wealth of Mrs. Leland 
Stanford at $34,543,308 ; that of Mrs. Charles Crocker 
at $34,495,458 ; that of Mrs. Hopkins, $25,280,972 ; 
while Mr. Huntington's wealth is estimated even higher 
than that of Mrs. Stanford and Mrs. Crocker. It is 
about twenty years since the late Mr. Vanderbilt was 
graduated from steamship business into railroad man. 
agement; his possessions at that time were valued at 
from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000; at his death, some 
three years since, they were estimated at $80,000,000. 
Mr. Jay Gould obtained his start in the management of 
the Erie Railroad, in connection with the late James 
Fisk. At the time he gave his now famous testimony, 
before quoted, in 1873 (having reference to testimony 
quoted on another page), he was considered worth from 
three to five millions. To-day no one knows how much 
he is worth ; but in Wall street estimates are made 



AS A NATION. 1 67 

ranging from thirty to sixty minions. Railroad men, 
who have accumulated within a few years amounts 
ranging from one to five million, are too numerous to 
mention, as are those, also, in branches of trade 
depending upon and closely identified with railroad 
transportation — shippers who, through the favor of railroad 
managers, have been enabled to outstrip or break down all 
competition, 

" These are found in every branch of trade, but in 
none, perhaps, are they so prominent as in the petro- 
leum business. If a true history of the Standard Oil 
Company could be written, it would read more like a 
romance of the Middle Ages than a statement of com- 
mercial facts possible in the nineteenth century. This 
is the organization to which the Hepburn committee 
alludes as this mysterious organization, whose business 
and transactions are of such a character that its members 
decline giving a history or description of it, lest their testi- 
mony be used to convict them of crime" 

The statement by Mr. Thurber, that the 
transactions of the Standard Oil Company are of 
such a character that they decline to give a his- 
tory of it, lest their testimony be used to convict 
them of crime, is significant. The whole trans- 
action referred to, not only on the part of the 
Standard Oil Company, but of every railroad 
corporation that entered into an agreement to 
rob and break down other manufacturers of oil, 
and swindle the people out of money, at the rate 
of ten millions in eighteen months, is a crime 
that well merits a life term in the penitentiary. 



1 68 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

But the more humiliating thought is, that this 
system of peculation still has power to continue, 
not only in reference to the Standard Oil Com- 
pany, but in reference to every other branch of 
industry. And the money thus taken from the 
people is being used to enslave them. The 
Standard Oil Company is purchasing large 
tracts of land in Minnesota and other parts 
of the West, for the purpose of raising wheat 
on a large scale. That means more of the 
tenant system; more cheap labor in competition 
with the already too poorly paid farming com- 
munity. But the most horrifying feature yet 
remains to be seen: 

THE RAILROADS THREATENING THE SUPREME 
COURT. 

These corporations are before our courts 
threatening them and in our legislative assem- 
blies, not only influencing, but controlling them. 

Read the following from Mr. Thurber: 

" On the twenty-seventh day of January, 1880, Mr. 
Franklin B. Gowen, president of the Phildelphia and 
Reading Railroad, in an argument before the Com- 
mittee on Commerce of the House of Representatives 
of the United States, in Washington, stated: 'I have 
heard the counsel of the Pennsylvania Railroad Coi7ipjny, 
standing in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, threaten 
that court with the displeasure of his clients if it decided 



AS A NATION. . 1 69 

against them, and all the blood in my body tingled with 
shame at the humiliating spectacle.'* In the Associated 
Press reports this was suppressed, and only when the 
argument was published by Mr. Gowen was this 
remarkable statement verified to those who heard it." 



Before the supreme court of a great state there 
stood a railroad corporation, in the person of its 
counsel, and threatened that august tribunal with 
its displeasure if it decided against it. 

Now if there is any one department of the 
Government, state or national, legislative or judi- 
cial, that is dearer to this nation than another, it 
is the supreme court department. It is the 
people's last resort to get their differences hon- 
estly adjusted. Capital and local interests or 
unwise legislative enactments may bias juries or 
a single judge in the courts below, but, in the 
supreme bench, counsel is multiplied, clothed with 
the dignity of age, and fortified with the wisdom 
of the highest legal learning attainable, — all that 
the scales of justice may be held with the steady 
hand of constitutional law. There the people 
demand that the pettigogger shall not enter, and 
that corporate wealth shall leave its robes of 
power at the threshold; that the peasant and the 
millionaire shall enter at the same door, stand 
upon the same equality, and, with uncovered 
heads, bow in reverence before the majesty of 



I70 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the law, enacted by the sovereign power of a free 
people. 

Our supreme courts are associated, in the 
minds of the people, with all that is grave, grand, 
just and powerful; they are omnipotent, in state 
and nation, in determining all the rights of the 
citizen under the law, and when the represent- 
ative of a corporation can walk boldly into that 
august presence and ? in effect, ask the supreme 
tribunal sitting in judgment there to violate its 
sacred office in the interest of capital, and not be 
hurled into a dungeon by the court he had 
insulted, the people want to know it. If it has 
come to this, that the highest tribunal of justice 
is cowering before associated capital, if the last 
repository of the power of the ballot has been 
seized, if the very arsenal of American lib- 
erty has surrendered to the enemy, the people 
ought to know it. And why do they not 
know it? Why ! Simply because a few 
wealthy newspaper men have joined together 
and arranged with telegraph companies to trans- 
mit news over the wires at lower rates than a 
single paper can get it. The combination is 
called the Associated Press. Minor newspapers 
can not compete with it, and, consequently, are 
obliged to depend almost entirely upon it for 
their telegraphic news, and the associated press 
is owned and controlled by the money power. 



AS A NATION. 171 

A corporation was behind that threat; hence it 
was that the astounding statement, communicated 
to the congressional committee by Mr. Gowen, 
was suppressed; thus it is that while the capitalists 
are bulldozing our supreme courts, and a venal 
press is giving aid and comfort to liberty's dead- 
liest enemy, the facts are being kept from the 
people. 

Some idea of the extent to which railroad cor- 
porations are running the machinery of this 
Government, by manipulating our legislatures 
and tampering with the people's rights generally, 
may be gathered from extracts from the report of 
the Hepburn Committee, which was appointed by 
the New York Legislature to inquire into rail- 
road management in that state. The committee, 
according to Mr. Thurber, reported as follows: 

" It is further in evidence that it has been the custom 
of the managers of the Erie Railway, from year to year 
in the past, to spend large sums to control elections 
and to influence legislation. In the year 1868 more than 
one million was disbursed from the Treasury for extra 
and legal services. 

(For interesting items see Mr. Watson's testis 
mony, pages ^6 and 337.) 

" Mr. Gould, when last on the stand examined in rela- 
tion to various vouchers shown him, admitted the pay- 
ment, during the three years prior to 1872, oi Large 



172 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

sums to Barber, Tweed, and others, and to influence 
legislation or elections. These amounts were charged 
in the India rubber account. The memory of this wit- 
ness was very defective as to details, and he could only 
remember large transactions, but could distinctly recall 
that he had been in the habit of sending money into 
the numerous districts all over the state, either to con- 
trol nominations or elections for Senators and Members 
of Assembly; considered, as a rule, such investments 
paid better than to wait till the men got to Albany, and 
added the significant remark, upon being asked a ques- 
tion, that it wonld be as impossible to specify the 
numerous instances as it would to recall the numerous 
freight cars sent over the Erie road from day to day." 

(See testimony, page 556.) 
The report of the committee, says Mr. Thur- 
ber, concludes as follows: 

"It is not reasonable to suppose that the Erie Rail- 
way has been alone in the corrupt use of money for the 
purpose named ; but the sudden revelation in the direc- 
tion of this company has laid bare a chapter in the 
secret history of railroad management such as has not 
been permitted before. It exposed the reckless and 
prodigal use of money, wrung from the people, to pur- 
chase the election of the people's representatives ■, and to 
bribe them when in office. 

"According to Mr. Gould, his operations extended 
into four different states. It was his custom to contrib- 
ute money to influence both nominations and elec- 
tions." 

The above report of the committee is based 
on such testimony as I have quoted, and the 



AS A NATION. I 73 

following, given by Mr. Gould, before the com- 
mittee : 

" I do not know how much I paid towards helping 
friendly men. We had four states to look after, and 
we had to suit our politics to circumstances. In a 
Democratic district I was a Democrat ; in a Republican 
district I was a Republican, and in a doubtful district I 
was doubtful ; but in every district, and at all times, I 
have always been an Erie man." 

Mr. Thurber, by the way of comment, further 
says: 

" It is a remarkable fact that not only did the rail- 
roads oppose this investigation, but the presidents of 
the New York Central and Erie Railroads, in a joint 
letter to the committee previous to the investigation, 
generally and specifically denied the existence of the 
alleged abuses, which were afterwards proven to exist. 
The Hepburn committee accompanied their report with 
a series of seven bills, designed to remedy, in the State 
of New York, the existing abuses. Of these, four of 
minor importance were not opposed by the railroads, 
and were allowed to become laws ; but the session of 
the legislature developed the fact that no bill to which 
the railroads objected could pass ; a majority of the 
Senate had been elected in their interest, and bills in them- 
selves just and conservative, were defeated. This ten- 
dency on the part of consolidated corporate interests 
to perpetuate, through the acquirement of political 
power, abuses which they have found to their interests 
to perpetuate is One of the most serious of the evils 
which threaten the public welfare. United States 



174 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Senator David Davis, in a recent letter, says, ' the rapid 
growth of corporate power, and the malign influence 
which it exerts by combination on the national and 
state legislatures, is a well-grounded cause of alarm. 
A struggle is pending, in the near future, between this 
overgrown power, with its vast ramification all over the 
Union, and a hard grip on much of the political 
machinery, on the one hand, and the people, in an 
unorganized condition, on the other, for control of the 
government.' It will be watched by every patriot with 
intense anxiety." 

That Senator Davis' fears are not groundless 
is evident from the following from Mr. Thurber : 

" That the great corporate interests of the country 
do not stop at electing their own men to shape legisla- 
tion, is shown by a recent revelation in Pennsylvania. 
The following Associated Press dispatch tells its own 
story : 

"'Philadelphia, March 28, 1880. — A consultation 
was held here to-night by a number of politicians, 
regarding the persons convicted of attempted bribery, 
in order to devise plans for their pardon. The case is 
by no means given up by Kemble and his fellow-defend- 
ants. The bitterness of the fight is sowing seeds of 
much future trouble. The two members of the Board 
of Pardons, who are holding out against an amnesty, 
are the subject of severe comment, and have cut them- 
selves off from all future political preferment, as far as 
it is controled by the dominant politicians. It is gener- 
ally believed that, if pardons are not obtained, the 
sentences will be very light. The cases are the subject 
of general discussion in this city to-night, and there is 



AS A NATION. I 75 

much conjecture as to the general result. Many politi- 
cal leaders, including Senator Don Cameron, are 
here.' " 

Mr. Thurber comments as follows: 

" In 1877, the great railroad riots took place, and at 
Pittsburg a large quantity of railroad and other prop- 
erty was destroyed. The railroad company refused to 
indemnify shippers, but at the same time had bills 
introduced in the Pennsylvania Legislature to make 
the State responsible to them. They employed lobby- 
ists to buy these bill through the legislature, but their 
operations were exposed, and William H. Kemble, E. 
Petroff and several others were arrested, tried, and, 
notwithstanding extraordinary efforts were made to 
secure their acquittal, were convicted. They immedi- 
ately applied for pardon, and were pardoned" 

It shows what politics in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania have come to, when it is publicly stated 
that Pakrier and Stone, the two members of the 
Board of Pardons, who are holding out against 
an amnesty, are the subject of severe comment, 
and have cut themselves off from all political 
preferment; and a Senator of the United States 
leaves his seat and returns home to arrange for 
the acquittal of men guilty of bribery. Kemble 
had been State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, and 
Petroff was at the time a member of the le<risla- 
ture. 

From the evidence produced by Mr. Thurber 



I76 Vv^HITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the following facts must be deduced — indeed,, 
they stand out so strong as to be irresistable : 
First, the Presidents of the New York Central 
and Erie Railroads are what, in common par- 
lance, would be denominated liars. Is liars the 
word? Webster defines liar to be one who 
utters falsehood to deceive. The presidents of 
those two roads joined in a letter to the com- 
mittee, in which they denied, not only generally,. 
but specifically, what the committee afterwards' 
found to be true, and there is no chance to ques- 
tion the knowledge of those men as to the matters 
upon which they wrote. They knew how those 
roads were being managed, and they joined in 
that letter to deceive the committee. And be it 
remembered, that one railroad corporation, under 
the management of one of those men thus con- 
victed of falsehood, controls one State, and proba- 
bly four, through their legislatures, b}^ the corrupt 
use of money in securing nominations and elec- 
tions in the interests of railroad corporations, and 
by bribing the people's representatives after they 
have been elected. Mr. Gould admits that the 
Erie road made an effort to control four states; 
and the failure of the attempt, in the New York 
Assembly, to legislate in the interest . of the 
people, against the wishes of this railroad corpor- 
ation, proves conclusively that he was successful 
in that state. And since the result has shown. 



AS A NATION. I 77 

that he controlled New York, which is the largest 
of the four, is it not reasonable to suppose that 
he controlled the other three? 

And, again, the statement by Mr. Gould that 
he had four States to look after is very -signifi- 
cant: it leaves the inference, very natural, that 
other railroads had their proportion of states 
allotted to them. How many had Vanderbilt 
and Tom Scott to look after? Probably the 
question was not asked; for, remember, the 
investigation was to gather facts concerning the 
management of railroads in New York — whether 
there were unjust discriminations, etc. The 
duties of the committee did not have to do with 
the political bearings of the railroad question. 
What was brought to light, in that regard, was 
purely incidental, and not sought after. 

The next blood-curdling thought which I 
would have linger in the mind of the reader is : 
That so far-reaching and potent is the political 
influence of the railroads in this government, that 
if, perchance, any of their agents are found guilty 
of crime, as in the case of Kemble and PetrofF, 
United States Senators can leave their places 
in the Senate, and, while drawing pay from the 
people, for their services, can use their time 
and influence to secure the pardon of crim- 
inals, who have bribed the people's representa- 
tives, and still retain their positions as leaders of 



1^8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

a great political organization, that boasts of its 
morality, patriotism and intelligence. I would 
have you remember, also, that the Associated 
Press did not condemn those senators, and made 
no attempt to strengthen the arm of Palmer and 
Stone, who were standing by the people in 
refusing to pardon the villians who had been 
poisoning the very life-blood of the Republic. 

The people are permitted to dabble a little in 
politics; but no thoughtful mind can ponder the 
facts here stated, and not feel that corporate 
wealth is the Autocrat ruling the nation; and, 
unless this Autocrat be checked, judging from 
the progress it has made in the last fifteen years, 
how much of Republican liberty will there 
remain when another fifteen years shall have 
rolled around? Who does not know that con- 
centrated wealth, in irresponsible hands, begets 
despotism? And are we not rushing to that end? 

THE VAST SWEEP OF TERRITORY IN POSSES- 
SION OF RAILROADS. 

How proudly we contemplated our public 
domain twenty years ago, stretching away in 
silent vastness toward the setting sun! We 
looked upon it as so much of God's material 
bosom, awaiting the touch of the plowshare to 
yield plenty; purchased with the blood of 



AS A NATION. 1 79 

patriots, and dedicated to the sons of toil, a 
philanthropic nation held it az a sacred gift to 
the lowly of earth, inviting them to come and 
live, to help dot the prairie with hamlets and the 
hillsides with their flocks and herds. Is it not a 
chilling thought that, of the tillable portion of 
that domain, only a little less than one-half is in 
the hands of wealthy corporations, forever be}*ond 
the reach of the actual settler, unless he can 
purchase it of the corporations, and pay their 
price for it. 

Americans! can you realize that there has 
been given to those corporations more broad 
acres than there are in the States of MAINE, 
NEW HAMPSHIRE, VERMONT, MASSA- 
CHUSETTS, RHODE ISLAND, CONNEC- 
TICUT, NEW JERSEY, DELAWARE, 
MARYLAND, PENNSYLVANIA, NEW 
YORK, OHIO and INDIANA? It would 
require more than two and one-half times 
the present population of the United States 
to populate the railroad lands as densely as 
the State of Massachusetts is populated; and 
if all the inhabitants of the United States and 
Territories were settled upon the railroad lands, 
the population would be about the same density 
as that of the State of Ohio. (For density of 
population in States, and land grants to railroads, 
see American Almanac ) pages 237-8-9 and 281.) 



I bO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

What playthings the capitalists have made of 
the American voters! They have raised false 
issues, got elected to Congress, then contracted 
with themselves to give themselves a certain 
quantity of the public land to build railroads, 
usually more in value than the roads have cost 
when completed; they then vote themselves as 
many government bonds for construction pur- 
poses as they see fit; then double the price of 
government land adjoining theirs, and thus 
compel the people to pay for lands which have 
been given to the corporations. Mountain ranges, 
lakes, rivers, sandy deserts and unhabitable 
swamps are included in the estimate of the 
quantity of the land now owned by the govern- 
ment. The railroads have generally been per- 
mitted to select theirs, and probably not more 
than one acre in four of the land now in posses- 
sion of the government is desirable for farming 
purposes; and, at the rate at which it is now 
being settled, another twenty years and very 
little desirable land will remain in possession of 
the government. Then the railroad lands, being 
all that are left, will be in demand — those desiring 
to cultivate the soil must either purchase or rent 
of the corporations; which means, more of the 
tenant system, more rent, increasing millions are 
paying higher and higher tribute to capital, the 
people's hard-earned dollars are multiplying in 



AS A NATION. l8l 

the pockets of the railroad kings, like snowflakes 
in a mountain gorge. 

Fellow-citizens, what an empire has been 
handed over to those capitalists? how vast its 
possessions ? how unscrupulous and unpitying its 
rulers? The Senate committee declared that 
those colossal organizations were daily growing 
stronger and more imperious ; that is to say, they 
are growing more and more arrogant, dicta- 
torial, lordly, commanding, despotic. And what 
more is needed to confirm the truth of that 
report, than that the very men, who served on 
that committee, are now silent in the presence of 
those same corporations? They cower before 
the very organizations which they declared were 
exercising a power over this people, such as 
Congress would not dare to exercise except upon 
the most imperative necessity. They once had 
the courage and manliness to depict the clangers 
of railroad monopoly and warn the people of 
approaching despotism. The despot has com- 
manded them to hush, and they bow to his will. 

What is to prevent such a power from becom- 
ing imperious? For thirty years it has over- 
come every influence that could be brought to 
bear to compel it to respect the rights of the 
people. On the right, and on the left, and in 
the rear, are the dead bodies of Senators and 
Congressmen, the scattered fragments of legisla- 



1 82 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

tures and courts, and the ashes of weaker foes, 
who have dared at any time to dispute its right 
to dictate the railroad policy of the nation. This 
modern giant has conquered the East, and is 
now on a triumphal march extending his 
dominion over the unmeasured and unscared 
fields of the West. It is not our purpose to 
analyze the legislation which has taken that 
vast sweep of territory from an honest and 
deserving people and lodged it in the hands of a 
set of men who, as a class, are dishonest, unprin- 
cipled, and who " recognize no principle of action 
but their own aggrandizement." And certainly 
I do not charge every man with dishonesty who 
has favored land grants to railroads, even in 
large quantities? but I do say that those shrewd 
capitalists, and such as have dishonestly aided 
them in taking so much of the people's property, 
for any purpose whatever, have perpetrated a 
horrid crime against humanity; and those who 
have honestly and thoughtlessly aided them have 
committed a blunder, which, without prompt and 
efficient action on the part of the people, may 
yet cost us our liberties. 

OUR DUTY IN THE MATTER. 

A conscienceless and partisan press has drawn 
the attention of the people from that which 
most concerns their prosperity, happiness and. 



AS A NATION. 1 83 

continued freedom: hence this lethargic condi- 
tion of the public mind. Now, let us remember 
that American liberty was purchased at an 
immense cost of blood and treasure. It is a 
legacy, from the fathers, more precious than 
any equal number of men ever had the power 
to bestow on their posterity, and it is the 
bounden duty of this people to check, control, or 
annihilate, if need be, any power which threat- 
ens, however remotely, to endanger its safety. 
There is danger to our institutions in allowing 
the railroad corporations to use their immense 
power as despotically as they are proven to have 
done and are now doing. Let us arouse the 
people — not to assail the railroads, which have 
added much to our happiness and prosperity as 
individuals and to our greatness as a nation, but 
to know them, watch them, and to control them 
within reasonable bounds. 

It does not follow that because the railroads 
have been such powerful aids to progress and 
civilization that they may not become destructive 
of the very ends for which the people aided them 
into existence. The railroads have been, in a 
certain sense, very valuable servants; but it docs 
not follow from that that we should allow them 
to become our masters — controlling the price oi 
our labor, limiting our prosperity, and changing 



184 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the value of our property when it suits their 
convenience to do so. 

Fellow-citizens, when a power has grown up 
in your midst that can, not only lower the value 
of property, many hundred millions of dollars, by 
a single stroke of the pen, but can, also, lay its 
strong hand on the legislative and judicial depart- 
ments of the Government, and say to the people 
" Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther," it is 
time that you awake from your dream of 
security, to rescue the fathers' precious gift of 
freedom from the merciless clutch of corporate 
wealth ere the death-damp appears upon the 
youthful brow of American liberty. 



AS A NATION. 1 85 



LECTURE VII. 

SCHEMES FOR CENTRALIZING WEALTH INTO 
THE HANDS OF THE FEW. 



SCHEMES FOR CENTRALIZING WEALTH— QUOTATION FROM WAR- 
. WICK MARTIN — WHAT THE EXCEPTION CLAUSE IN THE GREEN- 
BACK HAD TO DO WITH THE PROSPERITY OF THE NATION- 
HOW THERE CAME TO BE A PREMIUM ON GOLD— QUOTATION 
FROM HON. JOHN A. LOGAN— WHY THE GREENBACK WAS 
DEPRECIATED— HOW THE PEOPLE PAID THE PREMIUM ON GOLD 
— WOULD THE GREENBACK HAVE DEPRECIATED IF IT HAD 
BEEN MADE A FULL LEGAL TENDER— OUR DEMAND NOTES IN 
EUROPE— THE VALUE OF GOLD GOVERNED LARGELY BY LAW 
OUR GOLD EAGLE AND OTHER COINS— JUDGE TIFFINY ON COIN- 
ING MONEY— AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA QUOTED. 

In Vol. VII, page 14, of the Works of Thomas 
Jefferson, will be found these words of wisdom: 

" I am not among those who fear the people ; they, 
and not the rich, are our dependence for continued 
freedom." 

How well the grand old patriot understood 
that truth, which has been verified by the historv 
of all nations and all ages. In the same propor- 
tion that the wealth of a nation is concentrated 
in the hands of a few, the power that sustains 
freedom is weakened. Capital is a blessing 



1 86 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

when rightly used, and under proper safeguards; 
but when allowed to combine, with unrestricted 
powers, it always becomes despotic and danger- 
ous to liberty. Tyranny is an attribute of wealth, 
and never fails to manifest itself through rich 
corporations. A state senator in Minnesota said, 
in substance, to a wealthy banker: 

" Sir, your monetary system is robbing the 
people, and centralizing the power of the govern- 
ment/' 

The banker answered: 

" I know it; and is it not natural and right 
that it should do so? Look at the lakes and 
rivers — don't the big fish eat up the little ones? " 

The modern capitalists seem to think that 
they are but conforming to a law of nature when 
they instituted their centralizing schemes. They 
are the big fish, and, of course, have a right to 
feed on the little ones. But so determined were 
our forefathers that the American people should 
escape such disaster, that they abolished the law 
of primogeniture and entail, to prevent the 
accumulation of large fortunes in the hands of 
individuals, which they knew would endanger 
the liberties of the people. 

But I propose, in this lecture, to show that- 
modern capitalists have invented schemes by 
which they have concentrated wealth faster, and 
gathered to themselves more of the people's 



AS A NATION. 1 87 

earnings, in a single year, than the law of primo- 
geniture and entail could have done in half a 
century. 

The whole English system of finance, which 
has been unwisely retained by us, is a mighty 
centralizing power — in fact, a machine invented 
for that very purpose; and I desire to call atten- 
tion to some improvements, which the ingenuity 
of the modern Shylock has added to that machine 
since i860. 

QUOTATION FROM WARWICK MARTIN. 

I will commence by quoting the following from 
Warwick Martin's " Money of Nations ": 

"After our late immense war broke out, the banks of 
the money centers loaned the government, at high 
interest, intending thereby to get control of the 
treasury, upon the condition that they were permitted 
to suspend the false pretense and fraud of specie pay- 
ment. These banks proposed to loan the government 
all the money required to carry on the war, in notes of 
these suspended banks, receiving therefor 6 per cent, 
bonds of the United States, at $80 in $100, or at 20 
per cent, discount. This proposition was declined. 
The Secretary of the Treasury wisely determined that 
the credit and power of the nation should be relied 
upon for money to carry on the war. Bonds could not 
be sold. It would not do to rely, without security, upon 
the notes of state banks located all over the country, 
in a state of suspension. Too much time would have 
to be consumed in establishing national banks, based 



1 88 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

upon government bonds, to aid the nation in the crisis. 
The bonds could not then be obtained. We had only 
6,000,000 bonds out. There was no possible remedy 
for existing evils but to follow the advice of Jefferson, 
Madison, Jackson and Tyler, and issue treasury notes 
without interest, clothed with the authority, and sup- 
ported by the revenue, of the nation. The Secretary of 
the Treasury and the Finance Committee of the House 
had no thought of departing from the practice of the 
government from 1812 down, and from the sub-treasury 
law of 1846, then in full force, which made treasury 
notes receivable for all debts due the government, as 
they had always been. 

"A bill was reported which passed the House of 
Representatives, making Treasury notes full legal 
tender for everything. Congratulations poured in upon 
Congress from the East, the West, the North, and parts 
of the South. But Wall street was alarmed ; they saw 
in this act the discredit of their suspended bank paper. 
The bullion brokers saw that Treasury notes would be 
par with coin, and that their business would be 
destroyed thereby. In the language of Thaddeus Stev- 
ens, 'The caverns of the bullion brokers and the 
saloons of the associated banks were stirred.' The 
money power of Wall street was transferred to Wash- 
ington. The same powers that defeated the plans of 
Jefferson and Madison in 1816; those of Jackson in 
1829, 1830, 1831, 1832 and 1833, and the measures of 
Tyler in 1841, 1842 and 1843, now marshaled their 
forces again to defeat the great measure for the preser- 
vation of the Union. They found many faithful dev- 
otees in both houses of Congress. These men expressed 
holy horror at the idea of having the Government issue 
money, when the Government had done so at different 



AS A NATION. 1 89 

times from 1812 to 1857, of making paper money legal 
tender, when the notes of the two banks of the United 
States had been legal tender for all debts due to the 
Government for forty years ; when every Treasury note 
that had ever been issued by the Government had been 
legal tender for all debts due to the Government, and 
when the law of 1846 then in force made gold, silver 
and Treasury notes, legal tender for all debts due 
the nation. 

"A number of brave men, in the House and in the 
Senate, fought this battle in favor of legal tender 
Treasury notes manfully, but the banks and brokers 
triumphed over the Senate. The Senate amended the 
bill of the House, inserting the words '-except duties on 
imports? The bill came back to the House for concur- 
rence. There was no time for delay. The moments 
were precious. The honor of the nation was at stake 
and in danger. The House refused to concur, but this 
availed not with the Senate. The bill was passed in 
this mutilated, crippled condition, against the protest 
of the best men in the House and Senate. The banks 
congratulated themselves that the Treasury notes 
would be at a discount with their suspended bank 
notes. The bullion brokers rejoiced. They would now 
be able to establish a gold board for the first time in 
the United States. They could make fortunes by buy- 
ing and selling coin and legal tenders. The exception 
clause in this law increased the national debt at least 
$1,000,000,000. It has made Wall street rich and the* 
people poor. Since that day Wall street has had con- 
trol of both Houses of the Republican Congress, and 
the same power is now laboring to control the Demo- 
crats. Will Wall street succeed, is the question." 



I90 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

WHAT THE EXCEPTION CLAUSE IN THE GREEN- 
BACK HAD TO DO WITH THE PROSPER- 
ITY OF THE NATION. 

Mr. Martin has here given us some very 
important facts of history, and if the people only 
knew how important, there would be a political 
revolution in this country, at the very next elec- 
tion. If they knew how much that legislation 
had to do with our prosperity as a nation and 
the perpetuity of Republican institutions — if they 
knew how much misery it entailed upon this 
people — they would not wonder that Thaddeus 
Stevens wept over it. When the Senate refused 
to concur in the House bill to make the Treas- 
ury note, or greenback, as it is called, a legal 
tender, the House appointed a committee to 
confer with the Senate in regard to the matter, 
and grand old Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, 
was a member of the committee. Judge Kelley, 
of Pennsylvania, said he saw the grand old com- 
moner, when he returned from his conference 
with the Senate committee, with the hot tears 
streaming down his cheeks. The judge asked 
the old man what the result had been. " Oh," 
said he, "The Senate stood firm; we had to 
yield to the bankers, or let the country go to 
ruin." 

I feel very forcibly the fact that the people, 



AS A NATION. . 191 

whose knowledge of this matter is limited to 
what can be gained from a press controlled by 
the very men who perpetrated the crime, see 
nothing startling in the fact that the greenback 
was not made a full legal tender. But if you 
will follow me carefully through this lecture, I 
will give you a peep into a transaction iniquitous 
and far-reaching in evil consequences to an extent 
that has few parallels in history. 

The life of the nation was in danger, and 
money was necessary to our salvation. The 
specie basis system, true to its history, had 
proved a failure in the hour of need. The 
banks would loan their notes to the Government 
at twenty per cent, premium, to pay the army 
with. Who wouldn't exchange eighty dollars 
in notes, 'which they never expected to pay, for 
one hundred dollars in bonds, payable in gold, 
bearing a high rate of interest, and bached by 
the United States Government? A very ordi- 
nary business man could work himself up to that 
degree of patriotic fervor. But the banks had 
no power to make their notes good in the hands 
of the soldier, and the Government was obliged 
to refuse their insulting offer. The European 
capitalists would not loan us money at that time, 
for they hoped, and expected, to see the star of 
the great republic set in blood. The Government 
had no other alternative — it must issue money. 



I92 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

A bill was drawn for that purpose, as stated by 
Mr. Martin, and passed the lower House. 

Had that bill become a law as it passed the 
house, the money issued under its provisions 
would have been a full legal tender; that is to 
say, every citizen of the United States would 
have been obliged to receive it, in payment of 
debts. Now, truth always darts into the mind 
first — a lie is an after-thought — and the moment 
the proposition to issue that kind of money is 
stated, truth, under the dictation of common 
sense, takes possession of the mind, and says,, 
that is a right principle. If the government is 
to exercise the high prerogative of issuing 
money, let it be just — let there be no favoritism 
— let high and low, rich and poor, fare alike — 
let there be no making one kind of money for 
the bondholder, and another kind for the 'plow- 
holder. No man of common intelligence and 
common sense could see it in any other light. 

That bill passed the house according to the 
plain dictates of honest thought. But it met an 
army of bankers in the senate, who would not 
permit it to become a law in that form. . They 
got the bill amended, and by that act, as Gen. 
Weaver has said, " they put the sting of death 
in the back of the greenback." They added the 
words: " Except duties on imports and the inter- 
est on the public debt." Now, what motive did 



AS A NATION. 1 93 

they have for adding those words to that bill? 
Why, they had a very strong motive. The men 
who got those words inserted were owners of 
gold, and, had the greenback been made a legal 
tender for duties on imports, those engaged in 
the importation of goods from foreign countries 
could have paid the duties with greenbacks, and 
the gold bug would have had no sale for his gold 
— nobody would have been obliged to have it. 
And then, too, those same gold bugs owned 
government securities, and, had the greenback 
been made a legal tender, for interest on the 
public debt, they would have been obliged to 
receive their interest in greenbacks, the same as 
the soldier received his pay. But, after the 
exception clause was added to the bill, the bond- 
holder could get gold for interest on his bond, 
and sell it again to importers to pay duties 
on imports. So, you see the words, " except 
duties on imports and for interest on the public 
debt," meant everything to the gold gamblers. 
It gave them a business. They then opened their 
gold-room, reaped a harvest, and rioted in luxury, 
while the soldier fought the battles of his country, 
and received his pay in greenbacks. 

When that act was consummated, two gold 
bugs — we will call them Smith and Johnson — 
got together and conversed as follows: 

Smith: "I tell you, Johnson, that trick of 



194 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

getting that exception clause put into that bill 
was a big thing for us. What could we have 
done without it? " 

Johnson: "Well, we should have had to use 
our gold in business the same as greenbacks are 
used : we could not have raised a cent of premium 
on it." 

Smith: u That is so. If that greenback had 
been made receivable for duties on imports and 
interest on the public debt, it would have been 
just as good as gold, because it would have done 
all that gold can do. Oh, well, we are all right 
now. All we have to do, now that we have 
made a market for our gold, is, to get together, 
corner it, run the price up, and reap a harvest." 

Johnson: "That is so. And, by the way, A. 
T. Stewart has a cargo of goods from Liverpool 
at the custom-house now; he will have to buy 
gold of us to pay the duties; let us bleed him. I 
tell you that exception clause gives us a chance 
on those fellows." 

Next day Stewart receives a card from the 
custom-house, stating, " Cargo of goods here for 
you; we want the duties ($50,000) paid, and the 
goods taken away." Now, Stewart must have 
gold to pay the duties, because of the exception 
clause put in the greenback. Up he goes to 
Smith's office, on Wall street, and says: 



AS A NATION. I95 

" Smith, I want to buy fifty thousand dollars 
In gold; what will you charge me for it? " 

Smith: "I will charge you one dollar and 
fifty cents in greenbacks for one dollar in gold." 

Stewart: " That is rather high. I think I 
can do better than that. I will look further." 

Smith: "All right; that is your privilege, 
sir." 

Stewart leaves the office. Smith telephones to 
Johnson: "Stewart is coming to buy gold; send 
ztupy 

Stewart enters Johnson's office, and inquires 
the price of gold. 

Johnson answers, "One sixty." 

Stewart says: "I can do better than that at 
the other office." 

"That is your privilege," says Johnson. 

Stewart returns and offers to take the gold of 
Smith, at one dollar fifty. 

"Oh, no," says Smith. "Gold has gone up 
since you left; we want one sixty-five for it 
now." 

In that way they could, and did, run the price 
of gold up to two dollars and eighty-five cents. 

Now, do you not see clearly that the excep- 
tion clause in the greenback enabled Shvlock, by 
combination and trickery, to place gold at a 
premium, and enrich himself by plundering his 
country and kind. 



I96 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine, once Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, and a Republican of the 
Lincoln stripe, in his report, when speaking with 
reference to this subject, said: 

" It is quite apparent that the solution of the problem 
may be found in the unpatriotic and criminal efforts of 
speculators, and probably of secret enemies, to raise the 
price of coin, regardless of the injury reflected upon the 
country y 

The man is dull of comprehension who cannot 
see that the price of any commodity could have 
been raised by the same method. 

HOW THERE CAME TO BE A PREMIUM ON GOLD. 

To illustrate : We will say that that exception 
clause had made the duties on imports payable 
in black cats instead of coin. Now, that would 
create a market for black cats at once. Men 
importing goods from foreign countries must 
have them to pay duties on imports, and every 
man who has a black cat will hold it for a high 
price, and get it; for Congress has made a law 
that black cats, and black cats only, shall be 
received for duties on imports. Now, the owners 
of white cats get together and induce Congress 
to repeal the law which make black cats receiv- 
able for duties, and to pass a law making white 
cats receivable for duties. Black cats immedi- 



AS A NATION. 1 97 

ately become worthless — no more use for them. 
But there is a rush for white cats. Congress 
has made a law that only white cats shall be 
receivable for duties on imports. The owners of 
white cats are now in luck. Knowing that 
nothing but white cats will pay duties, and that 
importers must have them for that purpose, they 
get together, make a corner on them, and run 
the price of white cats up to two dollars and 
eighty-five cents a piece. 

Now, suppose the farmers to have discovered 
the trick. They influence Congress to repeal the 
law making white cats a legal tender for duties, 
and get a law passed making wheat, at a dollar 
a bushel, the only legal tender for duties on 
imports. That would have left the owners of 
white cats out in the cold: but it would have 
made a market for more than two hundred and 
sixteen million bushels of wheat in the year 1872 ; 
for the government received more than that in 
duties on imported goods in that year. So it 
will be seen that, while the government would 
receive wheat for duties at one dollar a bushel, 
the farmers, knowing that the importers must 
have it to pay duties with, could combine and 
run the price up to two eighty-rive, as the gold 
bugs did the price of gold. Is any further illus- 
tration needed to prove, to an}' person of com- 
mon intelligence, that the premium on gold was 



190 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the result of wicked legislation in the interest of 
speculators, secured by the insertion of the 
exception clause in the greenback, which so 
crippled and dishonored it that it could not be 
used to pay duties on imports, and thereby 
created a market for gold. 

The Shylock press and demagogues have 
made long-continued and desperate efforts to 
make the people believe that the premium on 
gold was the natural result of an over-issue of 
greenbacks. But no candid man can study the 
subject, with the facts before him, and not become 
convinced that the money power has been hood- 
winking the people in regard to that matter. 

QUOTATION FROM HON. JOHN A. LOGAN. 

Below I give the figures which will forever 
settle that question in your minds. The follow- 
ing figures I take from a speech delivered in 
Congress, in 1874, by the Hon. John A. Logan, 
of Illinois, to be found in the Appendix to the 
Congressional Record for that year. It was in 
Logan's better days. It was before he went 
over to the money power. I will give his 
remarks accompanying the figures. In reference 
to the argument presented by Shylock 's hire- 
lings, he said: 



AS A NATION. 



99 



" It has been answered over and over again. I an- 
swered it in my speech on January 19, by presenting a 
table showing the decline in the price of gold and 
appreciation of greenbacks, from January, 1865, up to 
January, 1874, from which statements, then made, I 
will now quote." 

After the above remarks, he quotes from his 
former speech, as follows: 

, " No, sir; the price of gold is regulated just as the 
price of any other article of merchandise — by the supply 
and demand. It is needed for but two purposes — to pay 
interest on the public debt, and pay duties on imports. 
I have labored pretty hard for a few days past to get 
the facts and figures to verify every proposition as far 
as I can, and I have here the figures showing the price 
of gold from January, 1865, down to January, 1874 : 



Date. 


Price. 


Difference per c 


1865. 


January, 


$234.1-2 










May, 


128. 1-2 


Fall, 


$ 


106 




October, 


149 


Rise, 




20.1-2 


1866. 


March, 


136.1-2 


Fall, 




12. 1-2 




April, 


125 


Fall, 




11. 1-2 




May, 


141. 1-2 


Rise, 




16. 1-2 




June, 


167.3-4 


Rise, 




26.1-2 




September, 


i43-!-4 


Fall, 




24.1-2 




December, 


131.1-4 


Fall, 




12 


1867. 


September, 


146.3-8 


Rise, 




IS- 1-8 




December, 


*33 


Fall, 




13.3-8 


1868. 


August, 


l 5° 


Rise, 




17 




November, 


132. 1-8 


Fall, 




17.7-8 



200 WHITHER ARE AVE DRIFTING 



Date. 


Price. 


Difference per cent 


1869. 


May, 


144.3-8 


Rise, 


24.1-2 




December, 


119,1-4 


Fall, 


24.1-2 


1870. 


January, 


123.1-4 


Rise, 


4 




March, 


no. 1-4 


Fall, 


13 


' 


July, 


122.3.4 


Rise, 


12,1-2 


1871. 


September 


115. 5-8 


Rise, 


5-i-2 




December, 


108.3-8 


Fall, 


7 


1872. 


August, 


"5-5-8 


Rise, 


7.1-4 




December. 


111.3-8 


Fall, 


4.1-2 


i873- 


April, 


119.1-4 


Rise, 


7-3-4 




September, 


114 • 


Fall, 


5-i-2 




October, 


108 


Fall, 


6 


1874. 


January, 


in 


Rise, 


3 



Thus it will be seen that the price of gold has been 
on a sliding scale downward from 1865 to the present 
day, and during the crisis and during the issuance of a por- 
tion of the reserve of greenbacks J.X. has been lower than at 
any time since the date first mentioned. By examining 
this table, you will find, that the variations in the 

PRICE OF GOLD ARE NOT REGULATED BY THE AMOUNT OF 
CURRENCY IN ANY WAY WHATEVER. BUT ARE REGU- 
LATED BY THE TIME OF PAYMENT OF DUTIES 
AND INTEREST AND ACCORDING TO THE 
BULLS AND BEARS OF NEW YORK, WITHOUT 
ANY REFERENCE WHATEVER TO THE GREEN- 
BACKS OR THE CURRENCY, THE AMOUNT 
GREAT OR SMALL." 

Mr. Logan was right in saying that figures, 
given in his table (which we find to be correct) 
prove, beyond all question, that the price of gold 
was not regulated by the amount of greenbacks 



AS A NATION. 201 

or currency in circulation, but by tne time of the 
payment of interest and duties, and according to 
the bulls and bears of Wall street who had 
power to raise or lower it at will. 

What should make the price of gold go up 
26 cents in June, 1866, fifteen months after the 
war was over, and the next September fall 24 
cents? Why should it rise 17 cents in August, 
1868, and then fall 17 7-8 cents the next Novem- 
ber? Why should it fall 7 cents in December, 
1 87 1, and rise 71-4 in August, 1872? Why 
should it require more greenbacks to purchase 
one hundred dollars in gold in 1872, than it did 
in 1 87 1? There is but one answer: the owners 
of gold combined and raised the price. During 
the war they could make a confiding people 
believe that, after a battle had gone against us, 
they must charge a higher price for gold; but 
in 1872, they had no such excuse. It then be- 
come self-evident that they controlled the market. 
But had the greenback been made a legal ten- 
der for duties on imports and interest on the pub- 
lic debt, there would have been no market for 
their gold, and consequently no premium. 

Duties on imports and the interest on the 
public debt having been made payable in gold, 
the holders of bonds drew their gold interest 
from government every six months, and then 
sold it to importers to pay duties. When the 



202 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

importer paid the duties, on his goods, that lodged 
the gold in the treasury again. The government 
then paid it to the bondholder, for interest on his 
bonds, and he again sold it to the importer, and 
so it went round and around, from speculator to 
importer, from importer to government, and 
from government back to speculator again. 

Hence, you see, the reason appears very plain 
why the banker and the bondholder wanted the 
exception clause put in the back of the green- 
back: it sent their gold whirling round and 
round, leaviug them a profit at every revolution. 

" Well," say you; " what of it? The bankers 
saw how they could arrange to make money, by 
creating a market for their gold, and who 
blames them for seizing the opportunity? " 

Well, Fellow-citizens, if the mere matter of 
making money had been all the question 
involved, the transaction might not have been 
considered so very wicked. But they made 
money at the expense of their country's good 
name and a fearful cost to the people. The 
bondholder induced the government to dishonor 
its own money by refusing to receive it for duties 
on imports. It needs no argument to prove that 
when the government refused to receive green- 
backs for debts, due to the government, green- 
backs must depreciate. When a man refuses to 
receive his own note back, in payment of debts. 



AS A NATION. 203 

due to himself, his note will depreciate ; and the 
same must be true of the government. 

The next thought with which I would impress 
you strongly is, that all the profit made on gold 
was taken from the people. What the gambler 
made the people lost. 

I will here quote some remarks made by 
Thaddeus Stevens, in Congress, when the excep- 
tion clause was being fastened to the greenback. 
He spoke as follows : 

" I have melancholy forebodings that we are about 
to consummate a cunningly devised scheme, which will 
carry great injury and a great loss to all classes of the 
people, throughout this Union, except one. It makes 
two classes of money — one for the banks and the other 
for the people." 

The old patriot foresaw that that devilish 
scheme of robbery would carry great loss and 
great injury to the people, and he felt melancholy, 
as any lover of his kind would feel, on seeing a 
scheme invented which he knew would increase 
the misery of his already sorrowing country. 

Henry Wilson, since vice-president, on the 
same subject, spoke as follows: 

' k I look upon this contest as a contest between the 
curbstone brokers, the Jew brokers, the money brokers, 
and the men who speculate in stocks, and the produc- 
tive, toiling men of our country." 



204 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The infernal plot was discovered, and opposed 
by a noble band of patriots in Congress, but the 
capitalists were in a position to do the country 
so much harm, if their wishes were not complied 
with, that many, like Thaddeus Stevens, yielded 
to their demands, as a patriotic duty, rather than 
have them direct their influence against the gov- 
ernment in that hour of peril 

The capitalists saw that the exception clause 
in the greenback would not only enable them to 
sell their gold, but that it would depreciate the 
greenback, and, through the depreciation of the 
greenback, they could get hold of more bonds, 
and in that way they would be getting more gold 
to sell, inasmuch as the interest on bonds was 
made payable in gold. Hence, the depreciation 
of the greenback was a part of their devilish plan. 

WHY THE GREENBACK WAS DEPRECIATED. 

Fellow-countrymen, judging from anything 
you ever heard spoken by Shy lock's orators, or 
published by his press, would you believe that 
the greenback was purposely depreciated? No! 
They have given every reason for the deprecia- 
tion of the greenback except the right one. They 
have declared that it was because the Democrats 
cried them down; and that it was, because there 
were so many issued, that it was feared the govern- 
ment would not redeem them, etc. Now 5 I say 



AS A NATION. 205 

to you that the greenback was purposely depre- 
ciated, and here is the proof: John Sherman, the 
late Secretary of the Treasury, was once chair- 
man of the finance committee in the United 
States Senate, and on the 12th day of December, 
1867 (see Congressional Record, same date), he 
made a report, as chairman of that committee, 
and with reference to bonds and greenbacks, he 
said: 

" It became necessary to depreciate the notes (green- 
backs) in order to create a market for the bonds." 

Here we have it, from the highest authority 
in the Republican party, that the greenback was 
purposely depreciated in order to create a market 
for the bonds. Now, this may be new to you, the 
the money power is keeping these important facts 
from you as much as possible. It will help you to 
see more clearly into Shy lock's scheme of robbery, 
to know how the depreciation of the greenback 
would create a market for bonds, and what the 
effect would be upon the people and the bond- 
holder. The exception clause lowered the value 
of the greenback and raised the price of gold ; 
it changed their relative value, until the differ- 
ence at one time was $1.85. Then the capital- 
ists could purchase two hundred and eighty-five 
dollars in greenbacks with one hundred dollars 
in gold, and the government would receive his 



2o6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

greenbacks at par for bonds, drawing 6 per cent, 
gold interest. That would give him one hundred 
and eighty-five dollars in bonds for one hundred 
dollars in gold, and those bonds would be draw- 
ing just as much gold interest as though they cost 
their face value in gold. In that way he increased 
his interest income from 6 to 1 7 i - 1 o per cent. Thus 
it will be seen that, as a result of the depreciation 
of the greenback, he draws 17 1-10 per cent, inter- 
est on his one hundred dollar gold investment, 
whereas, if the greenback had been at par, he could 
have drawn only six per cent. The deprecia- 
tion of the greenback gave him an opportunity 
to almost treble his interest-drawing capital, 
which he did by investing his gold in greenbacks, 
and the greenbacks in bonds, drawing gold inter- 
est. I trust you now see how the depreciation 
of greenbacks created a market for bonds. 

HOW THE PEOPLE PAID THE PREMIUM ON GOLD. 

It now remains to show the effect of that 
legislation upon the country and the people; for, 
as a rule, one cares very little who gets rich if it 
does not come out of him. Wall street did get 
rich out of the hard earnings of the most indus- 
trious and patriotic people on earth ; and this was 
accomplished by inserting the exception clause 
in the greenback, which so crippled it that it 
would not pay the duties on imports. Of course, 



AS A NATION. 207 

this forced the importer to buy gold to pay his 
duties; and he, of course, must add the premium 
which he paid for gold to the purchase price of 
his goods; and hence the people must pay this 
premium in the enhanced price when they buy 
of the merchant. The extra amount which the 
people were forced thus to pay in consequence 
of the fictitious premium on gold can be deter- 
mined exactly from the records, which show the 
amount of goods imported, the amount of duties 
paid, and the price of gold at the time. These 
records show that the goods imported from 
foreign countries, and consumed by the Ameri- 
can people, from 1862 to 1877, amounted to 
$7,137,009,862. Those goods were purchased 
in Europe with gold or its equivalent. As Mr. 
Fessenden said, gold speculators had, by means 
of the exception clause, raised its price " without 
regard to the effects upon the country; " so that 
the average premium on gold for those years wa 
about 29 per cent. The importer paid th 
premium for gold with which to pay for those 
goods in Europe. That added $2,068,833,285 
to the currency value of the goods in the cus- 
tom-house. 

Now, before they can be delivered to the 
importing merchant, he must pay the duties in 
gold (because of the exception clause in the 
greenback). From 1862 to 1877 tnc govern- 



:: 



2o8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ment received in duties $2,405,512,948 in gold. 
The exception clause in the greenback forced the 
importer to buy this amount of gold of the gold- 
bugs to pay those duties. The average prem- 
ium being 29 per cent., there was thus added 
$697,599,145.79 to the currency price of the 
goods. 

Now, the importer, having paid the duties, 
takes the goods from custom house, and is ready 
to mark the price upon them at which he can 
afford to sell them to the American people. He 
soliloquizes thus: 

" Slrylock has crippled the greenback with the 
exception clause, and made a market for his gold 
by compelling me to buy the enormous sum 
above stated to purchase my goods in Europe 
and to pay the duties after the goods are landed 
in our custom house. At one time he charged 
me a premium of one dollar and eighty-five 
cents; but for the fifteen years from 1862 to 
1867 he has charged me an average premium of 
about 29 per cent. My account with the gold 
gambler stands thus: ' v 

Extra money paid to gam- 
bler for gold to purchase 
my goods in Europe - - $2,068,832,285 

Extra money paid to gam- 
bler to pay duties - - 697,599,145 



Making a total of - - $2,766,431,430 



AS A NATION. 209 

all of which I must charge up to the people who 
buy the goods." 

Now toilers, you see how the exception clause 
in the greenback affected you. The money 
taken from this people, and put into the pockets 
of gold gamblers during the fifteen years men- 
tioned, amounted to $2,766,431,430, a sum 
larger than the national debt at the close of the 
war. 

Now let us see how it affected the people indi- 
vidually. In the year 1864 the amount of goods 
imported was $275^320,95 1 ; average premium 
for 1864, $1.03. To get the gold to pay for 
those goods, the importer was obliged to pay the 
premium ($1.03), which amounted to $283,580,- 
579, or $8,259,628 more than the first cost of the 
goods. Thus it will be seen that the premium 
more than doubled the currency price of the 
goods before the duties were paid. That year 
the government received in gold, for duties, 
$102,316,153. This, also, was purchased by the 
importers at a premium of $1.03, which made it 
cost him $105,385,637 extra, which, of course, 
he must add to the currency price of his goods. 
The increase in the cost of the goods to the 
people that year was the extra amount of prem- 
ium paid for gold to purchase them in Europe, 



2IO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

which was - - - $283,580,579 

And the extra premium on gold, 

to pay the duties, which was 105,385,637 

Total .... $388,966,216 
Here you see what the exception clause took 
from the people, and gave to Shy lock, in 1864. 
Now, let us get it down to families. 

The population of the United States in i860 
was 31,443,321. Give to the North, Maryland, 
Missouri, and Kentucky, and deduct the popula- 
tion of the other Southern States, which was 
9,216,744, who paid no duties in 1864, and it 
leaves a population of 22,226,577 to pay duties. 
Allowing five members to each family, gives us 
4,445,315 families. The sum of $388,962,216, 
which the premium on gold added to the cur- 
rency price of goods, distributed equally among 
4,445,315 would amount to eighty-seven dollars 
to each family. Allowing three hundred work- 
days in a year, with wages at one dollar per day, 
the head of each family worked eigty-seven days, 
or more than one-fourth of his time, during the 
year 1864, for the gold gamblers of Wall street. 

Now, the people did not understand this. The 
tax-gatherer did not come around and collect the 
money and pay it to the gold speculator, but the 
speculator got it, just the same, and the people 
paid it, just the same. They paid it in a 



AS A NATION. 2 I I 

higher price for their goods. Our cotton and 
sugar crops were cut off in the South, and we 
had to import them from foreign countries, as 
we did our tea and coffee. The premium on 
gold, at some periods during the war, more than 
tripled the currency price of those goods; so 
while the people were paying it in a higher price 
on their goods Shylock was making it, selling 
gold to purchase those goods in foreign markets 
and to pay the duties at the American custom 
house. 

The people were paying it on more than eight 
hundred different kinds of goods. For dutible 
articles see book entitled Trade and Commerce, 
for 1879, published by the Treasury Department, 
at Washington. 

It is a source of great satisfaction to me to 
know that the masses of the people are beginning 
to find these things out; but it sends terror into 
Wall street, and every possible means is being- 
used by the money power to prevent the people 
from finding out what has been done. But 
murder will out. A farmer comes into the 
presence of the author, at present writing, and 
speaks substantially as follows: 

" I was on the train, near Geneva, 111., during the 
war; a man entered; I had conversation with him; he 
told me that he was going to buy a big farm in Geneva ; 
that he had sold gold enough in Rock Island so that the 



212 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

profits would pay for the farm, and he was going to buy 
it. Now, said the farmer, that farm was given to that 
gold speculator by legislation, and I helped to pay for 
it out of my hard earnings, for if the greenback had 
been a legal tender for duties on imports and interest 
on the public debt, nobody would have been obliged to 
buy his gold, and he could not have sold it and bought 
the farm with the profits paid him by the importer, and 
which was added to the price of my tea, coffee, cotton 
goods, and hundreds of different articles of merchan- 
dise which I was buying at the time.' 

When we can get the laboring people to see 
those facts as clearly as my farmer friend sees 
them, our conntry will be saved from the tyranny 
of Shylock. Is ty r ranny the word? To illustrate: 
Take the soldier with a family, and he working 
for sixteen dollars per month; the eighty-seven 
dollars of premium which fell to his family to pay, 
in 1864, would cover more than one-third of his 
wages. In the year 1864, the gamblers of Wall 
street appropriated one-third of the soldier's 
hard-earned dollars to their own use. But it may 
be asked, Did not the gold speculator help to pay 
that premium on gold the same as the soldier? 
did not his family purchase tea, coffee, etc. ? Yes. 
But remember that all that was paid by the 
gold gambler came back into his his own pocket 
again in interest on his bonds. Not so with the 
soldier: what he paid went into the speculator's 
pocket and remained there. But to illustrate 



AS A NATION. 213 

more clearly: The capitalist has one hundred 
thousand dollars invested in bonds. The eighty- 
seven dollars, which he paid in a higher price for 
goods, would be a little more than one-half of one 
per cent, (coming back into his own pocket) on an 
investment which brought him an annual income 
of six thousand dollars. The soldier invested 
his labor. At sixteen dollars per month, his 
income would be $192 per annum; the eighty- 
seven dollars paid by him would be 45 per cent. 
on his investment, or more than one-third of his 
wages, which went directl}* into the pockets of 
the gold gambler. 

Thaddeus Stevens, in his speech on the excep- 
tion clause in the greenback, asked the question: 
" Was ever such a scheme invented to rob the 
people?" Was the question a pertinent one? 
Did ever a question mean more? Did we not 
see the answer written on the brow of the weary 
widow, as she bent over the tub day after 
day, and gave a share ot her scanty earnings to 
Shylock, every time she purchased cotton goods, 
to protect herself and darlings from the winter's 
wind; tea, to steady her quivering nerve; or 
sugar, to sweeten the last draught of a dying- 
child? Did we not see it in the lagging step of 
toil, as it innocently yielded up a share of its 
wages to those enemies of Republican govern- 



214 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ment — the greedy rapacious Shylocks of Wall 
street ? 

That infamous exception clause, in the green- 
back, caused the laboring people to hand over to 
capital the results of more than one days' labor 
every week, during the year 1864, and an aver- 
age of not less than one day in twenty for the 
eighteen years, beginning with 1863, and ending 
with 1879. 

I promised to give you a peep into a transac- 
tion iniquitous and far-reaching in evil conse- 
quences; have I succeeded? In your answer, 
consider the terrible fact that it was when war 
was sweeping through the land, on the wings of 
a dusky demon, and clouds of sorrow darkened 
every home that the money power had the cruelty 
to invent, and push forward its devilish scheme 
of depreciation, by which it pocketed about one- 
fourth of the scanty pay of the votaries of liberty, 
who were defending their country's altars under 
the thundering batteries of a resolute foe. 

WOULD THE GREENBACK HAVE DEPRECIATED IP 
IT HAD BEEN MADE A FULL LEGAL TENDER. 

I am well aware that, by persistent efforts for 
twenty years, the money power has made the 
people believe that the greenback would have 
been at a discount, even if it had been made a 



AS A NATION. 21 § 

full legal tender, which, if true, would not help 
their case, nor relieve them from guilt, in the 
slightest degree. The fact would still remain, 
that there were two kinds of money, and that the 
bondholder shaped the laws so that he received 
gold for his pay, while the soldier was obliged to 
receive his in depreciated greenbacks. 

But it is not true that the greenback would 
have depreciated if it had been made a full legal 
tender. And the pretense of the money power 
to the contrary is without even a shadow of 
foundation, as the following history of our finan- 
cial experience, as a nation, will show: 

In 1 86 1 and 1862, the government issued sixty 
millions treasury notes, payable on demand. 
Now, these notes had all the power that the 
promise of redemption could give them; yet 
they depreciated in value, and in Vol. XI, page 
743, of the edition of the American Cyclopaedia, 
published in 1875, with regard to those demand 
notes, I find the following: 

" There were instances of the soldiers having to sub- 
mit to the loss of a discount, on those notes for pay, of 
from 4 to 20 per cent, in the District of Columbia." 

Now, why were those notes not at par with 
gold? I answer: Because they were not a Legal 
tender, and nobody was obliged to receive them 
in navment of debts. For that reason, and for 



2l6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

no other, they were not as good as gold for the 
purposes for which money is used. On the other 
hand, gold coin was a legal tender, and creditors 
were obliged to receive it in payment of debts; 
hence its superiority as money at that time. 

Now, the gold bug steps in, and says, " It was 
not the legal tender quality that made gold better 
than the treasury notes at that time, but it was 
the intrinsic value it contained.'" But the truth 
is, it was not the intrinsic value, it was the legal 
tender quality — the debt paying power — given it 
by law which made gold the better money at 
that time. Now, here are two opinions diametri- 
cally opposed to each other. Which is right? 
Oh, if the people could only know which is right, 
the prospect for a fairer future, for this govern- 
ment, would look very much brighter than it 
does at present. The latter opinion is right; 
and here is the proof: While those sixty million 
treasury notes were at a discount of 20 per cent., 
Congress passed a law making them a full legal 
tender; and from that hour they were at par 
with gold, and were bought and sold to pay 
duties, the same as gold. 

Now, why did they not make all the green- 
backs a full legal tender, the same as they did 
that sixty million? The answer is plain, from 
statements, to which attention has been called, 
made by Messrs. Fessenden, Stevens, and others. 



AS A NATION. 217 

The gold gamblers prevented it. If the green- 
backs had been made a full legal tender, they 
would have been used to pay duties, and Shylock 
could not have gathered the earnings of the 
people to himself, and then use them to persuade 
Congress to legislate in his own interest. 

OUR DEMAND NOTES IN EUROPE. 

But how was it with the sixty million of legal 
tenders in Europe? Now, what says your own 
common sense in regard to this matter? Does 
riot your reason tell you that any kind of money 
that would pay duties, and pay any debt that 
could be paid with gold, in the United States, 
would be just as good as gold in Europe, less 
the cost of exchange, which is very trifling? 
Those legal tenders went to Europe the same as 
gold, and were just as good as gold there. Why 
should they not be? Europeans doing business 
with this government, or the citizens of this 
government, could use them in their business to 
pay duties, and for all purposes for which gold 
is used. The value of money in a foreign country 
is determined by its purchasing power at home. 
If it will purchase all that gold will purchase at 
home, it will do the same abroad. Those sixty 
millions^pf full legal tenders would purchase 
gold in New York, dollar for dollar. 

The London merchant would receive them at 



2l8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

par, of course, for the very good reason that a 
bill of exchange that is good for its face value, in 
gold in New York, is good for its face value in 
gold in Europe, and vice versa. No sooner 
is the above proposition stated than its truth 
and force is felt. More than nine-tenths of the 
business between countries is done with bills of 
exchange, and not by shipping money back and 
forth. 

The money power has striven to make the 
people believe that the value of money is deter- 
mined by its intrinsic or commodity value — that 
is, according to its weight and fineness. 

This proposition is proven to be false by the 
history of the sixty millions treasury notes 
before mentioned. There was just the same 
intrinsic value in these notes, the day before 
Congress made them a legal tender, as there 
was afterward; yet they were not worth 
as much by twenty cents on the dollar. Did 
not the law add that twenty per cent, to 
the value of those notes? If it did not, 
what did? That one fact, well considered, will 
explode Shy lock's whole theory in respect to the 
value of money, and the money sharks know it 
— hence their efforts to keep the people in 
ignorance of finance, while they continue to fleece 
them with their cut-throat system. Tnink you 
that the men, whom the thoughtlessness of the 



AS A NATION. 2 1 9 

people permits to shape the financial policy of 
the government to suit their own interests, can 
not understand as plain a principle as the one I 
have just illustrated? A child can understand 
it, and an intellectual giant can not over- 
throw it. 

THE VALUE OF GOLD GOVERNED LARGELY BY 
LAW. 

Senator Logan was right in saying that " The 
price of gold is regulated just as the price of any 
other article of merchandise is, by the supply and 
demand." When a demand is created for it by 
legislation, as was done in this country by the 
exception clause in the greenback, the price will 
go up; and, should the nations which now make 
gold coin a legal tender, demonetize it, and no 
longer oblige the people to receive it in pay- 
ment of debt, its price would fall very low and 
the demand for gold would largely cease, and 
the same would be true of silver. 

I realize the importance of this proposition in 
this discussion; for if it is true, and we can get 
the people to understand it, the belief which a 
cruel money power has instilled into their minds, 
that the so-called precious metals are money 
without the fiat of the government, and possess 
the same intrinsic value at all times, without 
regard to law, will vanish, and they will begin 



2 20 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

to doubt, not only the sincerity of their leaders, 
but the soundness of their monetary system. 

That it is true, here is the proof. I copy from 
the American Cyclopoedia same ed., vol. xi., 
P^e 735 : 

"After the discovery of gold in California and Aus- 
tralia, the economists of Europe predicted a great 
decline in its value. Prominent among these was M. 
Chevalier. Under the influence of the teachings of the 
economists, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany 
all demonetized gold, and adopted silver as the only 
legal tender, at a fixed rate. In those countries gold 
only circulated as a commodity, subject to daily fluctu- 
tions in value ; and, as a consequence, deprived as it 
was of legal support (legal tender quality) as money, it 
was but little used." 

Here we have the proof, which I promised, 
from the highest authority. As soon as gold 
was deprived of its legal tender quality, it was 
not only subject to daily fluctuations in value 
but it went almost entirely into disuse 

The same writer further says: 

" In India, prior to 1835, gold and silver were both a 
legal tender. But silver became the exclusive one. In 
1 841 the Indian Government authorized gold mohars 
to be received, when offered, for taxes. In December, 
1852, however, this was prohibited, for fear that all 
payments might be made to them in gold, which was 
the cheaper metal, while they might be obliged to make 
all payments in silver, which was the only legal 
tender." 



AS A NATION. 221 

Here it is again. In India, in 1852, gold, not 
being a legal tender, became cheaper than silver, 
and the government would not receive it for 
taxes, lest its creditors might demand silver, 
which, being a legal tender, was the more valu- 
able. Further on, in the same article, the cyclo- 
pcedia says: 

" On the testimony of Thomas Baring, we are assured 
that it was found impossible during the crisis of 1847 in 
London to raise any money whatever on a sum of 
^60,000 of silver. 

Notice again: Sixty thousand pounds sterling 
of silver, if coined into dollars, would amount to 
three hundred thousand dollars ; yet, with all that 
vast amount of silver, no money whatever could 
be raised. And why? Because silver was not 
a legal tender, and consequently not money. 
You could get silver with money, but you could 
not get money with silver. 

So much for one of the precious metals. Now, 
could gold be affected this way? The same 
writer, on same page, says: 

"During a similar crisis in Calcutta, in 1864, it was 
equally impossible to raise even a single rupee (40 
cents) on ^20,000 of gold. The former was not a legal 
tender above 40 shillings, while the latter was not for 
any sum whatever. 

Could anything be more conclusive than this? 



222 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

In Calcutta, in 1864, gold was not a legal tender; 
and twenty thousand pounds sterling, equivalent 
in our money to $100,000, not being a legal 
tender there, would not purchase a single rupee 
(46 cents). 

I will add the following, from the same 
author: 

"About 1855, Holland adopted silver as the only- 
legal tender, at a fixed value, but attempted to coin 
gold having no such value, this only being regulated 
by the market price from day to day. After 200,000 
florins (about $80,000) had been coined the demand 
entirely ceased." 

Now, here we have a case where the attempt 
to make gold serve as money, without the legal 
quality, was a failure. It died. It lacked the 
inspiration of law. It went out of use altogether. 
Do such undeniable historic facts and common 
sense arguments need comment to prove the 
position I have taken? When the government 
of Holland put its flat upon those pieces of gold, 
and said, " These are legal tender for all debts, 
public and private," they sprang into life, and 
went on their way through the realm, perform- 
ing the functions of money. Holland has since 
demonetized silver, and it has now gone out of 
use there. 

Do you not perceive that, should the govern- 



AS A NATION. 223 

ments of the world demonetize gold, gold 
watches, rings, and filling for teeth, would be 
much cheaper than at present ? Do you not see 
that law makes and unmakes money, and regu- 
lates its value? 

On page 311, American Almanac for 1878, 
I find the following, taken from the report of the 
Director of the Mint, 1877: 

OUR GOLD EAGLE AND OTHER COINS. 

" Eagle, $10. — Authorized to be coined, Act of April 
2, 1792; weight, 270 grains; fineness, 916 2-3. Weight 
changed, Act of June 28, 1834, to 258 grains." 

Now, what makes the gold eagle of 258 grains 
pay just as much debt as the old eagle of 270 
grains? Is it not the fiat of the government — 
the very power that made those eagles money in 
the first place? "But hold! " says James G. 
Blaine and the bank money men: "God made 
gold money "5 and Robert G. Ingersoll, in 
speaking of Blaine's fitness for the presidency, 
and the demands of the people, said : 

" The people demand a man who knows enough to 
know that all the money must be made, not by law, but 
by labor." 

Well, here is what the supreme Court of the 
United States thinks about it. That court, in 



224 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the celebrated legal tender case (Wallace's 
Supreme Courts Reports, pages 48-9), decides as 
follows : 

" The eagles coined after 1834 were not money 

UNTIL TKEY WERE AUTHORIZED BY LAW. And had they 

been coined before, without a law fixing their value, 
they could no more have paid a debt than uncoined, 
bullion, or cotton, or wheat." 

Here you have history, the Supreme Court, and 
your own common sense, against Blaine, Inger- 
soll & Co. According to the supreme court, and 
your own common sense, the gold eagle, even 
after it had been coined, would not have been, 
money without the authority of law. Did labor 
make that eagle money, or did law make it 
money ? The government must put its fiat upon 
it before it can become money. When the gov- 
ernment does that, it fixes its value as money. 
In 1792, it fixed the value of 270 grains of gold 
at ten dollars. In 1834, it fixed the value of 258 
grains (twelve grains less) at ten dollars. In 
1792, the government fixed the value of 135 
grains of gold at five dollars. In 1834, it changed 
it to 129 grains. 

Here it will be seen that the government has 
changed the weight and fineness of the different 
denominations of gold money from time to time : 
But its money value has remained the same. The 



AS A NATION. 225 

law has changed its intrinsic value, but has not 
changed its money or debt-paying power. 

Now, let us see how it has been with silver. 
In 1792, the government fixed the money value 
of 416 grains of silver at one dollar. In 1873, it 
authorized the coinage of half dollars, containing 
192-9 grains of silver. Thus, two of those half 
dollars contained more than 30 grains less silver 
than the dollar of 1792, and yet it had the same 
money value. The fiat of the government made 
380 grains of silver a dollar, in 1873, as it had 416 
grains in 1 792. The thing we call our trade dollar 
contains 420 grains of silver, and its value varies. 
It will usually pass at the banks for ninety cents. 
Why does it not pass for a hundred cents? 
Because the fiat of the government is not upon it 
— it is not a legal tender for debts. It passes to 
whoever has a mind to receive it at its bullion 
value; it has no money value whatsover. At 
best, one hundred of them will pay only ninety 
dollars of debt. Our standard dollar contains 
only 412^ grains, or 7^ grains less silver than 
the trade dollar; yet one hundred of them will 
pay ten dollars more of debt, or purchase ten 
per cent, more of intrinsic value, in any purchas- 
able commodity, than the trade dollar. Now, 
how is it that the standard dollar, with a com- 
mercial or intrinsic value of 80 cents, will pur- 
chase ten per cent more of intrinsic value than 



226 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the trade dollar, containing 90 cents of intrinsic 
value? In other words, what causes the dollar 
containing the most silver to purchase less? and 
the one containing less silver to purchase more? 
There is but one answer, and it is plain and 
simple: the government has put its fiat upon 80 
cents worth of silver, and fixed its money value 
twenty cents above its bullion, or intrinsic value. 
Now, one capable of thinking once, can see that 
the same power that made 80 cents' worth of 
silver bullion worth a dollar as money, can fix 
the same money value upon ten cent's worth of 
bullion, or upon one cent's worth, or upon any 
other commodity or thing capable of receiving 
its stamp. 

Our nickel is a good illustration of this prin- 
ciple. Here the government left gold and silver 
altogether. It took 75 per cent, of nickel and 
25 per cent of copper and compounded or mixed 
them; and from about 17 cents worth of this 
compound of copper and nickel it made twenty 
five-cent nickels, and fixed the money value at 
one dollar. Here the fiat of the government 
added 83 cents, money value, to 17 cents of 
intrinsic value, and the result is one dollar in 
money. In one of our five-cent nickels there is 
less than one cent of intrinsic value; yet, as 
money, it is worth five cents. 

Now, was that copper and nickel money before 



AS A NATION. 227 

the government put its flat or stamp upon it? 
No, sir; as the supreme court has well said of 
the gold eagle, it was no more money, and could 
no more have paid a debt than copper ore or 
wheat. 

Was Robert Ingersoll right in saying that only 
labor can make money? — or was the supreme 
court right in saying that only law can make 
money? And will it be pretended that, if the 
government had stamped the nickel ten cents, 
instead of five cents, it would not have been worth 
just as much to use for money as our ten-cent 
silver piece? It would have paid just as much 
debt, and the debt-paying power of money deter- 
mines its purchasing power. The nickel is a 
legal tender for a certain amount of debt. The 
butcher receives it because it will pay the farmer 
for beeves; the farmer receives it because it is a 
legal tender for his grocer's bill; the grocer 
receives it because it is a legal tender to the 
wholesale merchant behind him; the borrower 
receives it, not because of its intrinsic value, but 
because it is a legal tender for money borrowed ; 
the money-loaner receives it because he can loan it, 
dollar for dollar, and use it to pay his taxes to the 
government; the producer of wealth parts with 
property for it — not because of its intrinsic value, 
but because he can use it as a medium by which 
he can exchange what he produces for what he 



2 28 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

wants. To illustrate : The farmer wants a har- 
ness, but the harnessmaker does not want corn, 
so the farmer cannot purchase a harness with corn 
directly; but he can take his corn to the miller 
and exchange it for money, and with the money 
he can purchase the harness. The harnessmaker 
receives the money without thinking or caring 
whether it is nickels, with 17 cents of intrinsic 
value, or gold dollars, containing 90 cents of 
intrinsic value (our gold dollar is only 90 per 
cent. gold). He only cares to know that it is a 
legal tender to his employe for labor and to his 
landlord for rent, and for all purposes for which 
money is used; he receives twenty nickels for a 
dollar because it will pay a dollar of debt; and 
because it will pay a dollar of debt it will 
purchase a dollar's worth of any .purchasable 
commodity. In short, every dollar is a flat 
dollar. It matters not whether it be composed 
of gold, silver or leather, it is not a dollar until it 
is made so by law; it is not money until it 
receives the fiat of the government that issues 
it, and then it is fiat money. Hence, all money 
is fiat money. 

Now, is this not plainly so ? Can you not see that 
the capitalists are misleading the people? Think 
you that Blaine, etc., do not know that money is 
a creation of law, and not of labor ? Well they 



AS A NATION. 229 

know that money pays debts not because of its 
intrinsic value, but because of its legal value. 

Hear the Supreme Court again, in the same 
decision, on page already referred to. It says: 

" By the obligation of a contract to pay money is to 
pay that which law shall recognize as money when the 
payment is to be made. If there is anything settled 
by decision it is this, and we do not understand it to 
be controverted. No one ever doubted that a debt of 
one thousand dollars, contracted before 1834, could be 
paid with one hundred eagles coined after that year, 
though they contained no more gold than ninety-four 
eagles before the contract was made, and this is not 
because of the intrinsic value of the coin, but because 
of its legal value.'' 

My countrymen, the above is a decision of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, a majority 
of whose judges are Republican. 

Now, the fact that the leading papers and 
speakers of the old parties have not placed these 
facts before you, in their true light, ought to 
excite your suspicion. Can you doubt that the}' 
are laboring to keep you in ignorance? 

Now, hear Judge Joel Tiffany, of New York, 
one of America's ablest jurists, who, in his Trea- 
tise on Government and Constitutional Law, 
says : 



230 . WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

JUDGE TIFFANY ON COINING MONEY. 

" To coin money and regulate its value as an act of 
sovereignty involves the right to determine what shall be 
taken and received as money, at what ?neasure and price if 
shall be taken; and what shall be its effect when passed 
or tendered in payment, or satisfaction of all legal 
obligations. . . . Government, like the Spartan 
law-giver, may put its stamp upon leather, and make that 
currency. And so long as it can fully provide against 
the counterfeiting of the same, and thus can regulate 
the quantity in use, it can give to its stamp upon leather 
the same money value as if put upon gold or silver, or 
any other material. Thus, government may put its 
royal or sovereign stamp upon paper, affixing its money 
value; and, if it limit the quantity, and fully provide 
against conterfeiting of it, it will have the same currency 
value as gold or silver, or any other substance. Much 
has been said about paper money, and gold, silver and 
copper money ; but all such language is deceptive. 
There is no such thing, legally, as gold and silver money, 
and paper money. Money, as the measure of price or 
value, is the sovereign authority impressed upon and 
attached to that which is capable of taking and retain- 
ing the impress of that authority. // is the recognized 
presence of sovereignty, in the viarket and in the court, 
applying the measure and determining the equality of 
exchanges, between subject and subject, peasant and 
prince, between crown and people. 

"As a medium of exchange, or a means to an end, it 
has no value but the sovereign will recorded upon its 
face ; and, in respect to its use, its value is as unchange- 
able as the authority that created it. Its 
value being fixed by the will of the government, and 
not by the intrinsic qualities of that upon which it 



AS A NATION. 23 1 

is impressed, legally, it cannot vary. Its relative pro- 
portions to other things may disturb their relative 
values, but its legal value stands fixed and immutable, 
while the price of commodities is measured by its rise 
and fall. The philosopher can change the reason, but 
he cannot change the laws. . . . That upon which 
the stamp is placed is called coin ; the act of stamping 
is called coinage, and, as the practice of all govern- 
ments using currency has been generally to place 
its money stamp upon metal of some kind, the 
common idea of coin is, that it must be metal, as dis- 
tinguished from other substances. But this rests solely, 
in the dictum of the sovereign or sovereignty, whether 
the coin shall be metal, leather, parchment, paper, or 
any other substance, as a question of expediency of 
political economy, and not authority. 

"The authority selecting the substance to coin, if 
wise, will consider the fitness, the adaptation, the econ- 
omy, the necessity for the public use. There is a need 
in every society for a medium of exchange, for money ; 
it is a public necessity, as well as private, and should 
be provided in such a way as to subserve that public as 
well as private use. The United States, as a nation, 
has the same authority to coin money and regulate its 
value as other sovereign nations, and there is no earthly 
authority to call it to account for so doing. In institut- 
ing the general government for administering its 
authority in respect to all subjects enumerated in the 
Constitution, and for the purposes therein named, it 
conferred upon Congress unlimited authority to coin 
money and regulate its value ; that is, it committed the 
whole subject of creating and regulating the legal cur- 
rency to Congress ; so that Congress, as the national 
legislature, is invested with plenary powers upon this 
subject. It was the intention of the people that this 



232 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

power should be exercised in such a manner as to make 
the currency adequate to any emergency that could arise. 
That is common sense, for, otherwise, the money 
power would always have the nation by the 
throat. The government was instituted, and the 
powers were conferred that they might be used in such 
a manner as to make every department of administra- 
tion contribute to the declared end the people had in 
view, to-wit: to the establishment of justice, to provide 
for the common defence, and promoting the general 
welfare. The pretence for attempting to restrict the 
powers over subjects committed to its jurisdiction, 
based upon the assumption that Congress is a body 
separate from the people, is without foundation. The 
people are as eminently and potentially psesent in Con- 
gress, to administer their own authority by legislation, 
as they were in the convention that formed their gov- 
ernment and established the mode of its administration. 
Therefore they may be as safely intrusted with the exer- 
cise of their authority to coin money and regulate its 
value, as they were to institute the government and 
ordain by whom that power to coin money, etc., should 
be exercised." 

This quotation from Judge Tiffany is in perfect 
accord with the Supreme Court, and avows the 
same self-evident truth, viz: that money is a 
creation of law, and is fixed by law. But, 
recording to Shylock: 

"Law cannot make money, nor regulate its value. 
Money is made and its value fixed by the fiat of 
Jehovah." 



AS A NATION. 233 

If Shylock is right, then our fathers were in 
error, and made an egregious mistake when 
they placed the following clause in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States: 

" Congress shall have power to coin money and regu- 
late the value thereof:" 

Now what power is conferred upon Congress 
by the words " to coin money and regulate the 
value thereof?" It cannot be the power to say 
how much of other kinds of property a given 
sum of money shall purchase ; because that would 
be to fix the quantity of wheat, or other com- 
modity, to be sold for a dollar. It means just 
what Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and other 
wise statesmen meant when they placed those 
words in the Constitition. They mean that Con- 
gress shall have power, by a majority vote, the 
president coinciding, to put the government 
stamp, or fiat, upon leather, paper, or any other 
material, and make it money, and fix its standard 
value, just as it has done in the case of nickel and 
other inferior metals. How else could Congress 
regulate the value of money? As I have before 
said, it cannot enact how much wheat a dollar 
shall purchase; but it can determine how much 
debt-paying power a certain piece of money shall 
have. In that way, and in no other, Congress 
can, and does, regulate the value of money. As 



234 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Judge Tiffany has said, it matters not upon what 
substance the money value is stamped, or how 
much intrinsic value there is in it, or whether 
there is any or not; its debt-paying or money 
power will be the same when stamped upon one 
kind of material as when stamped upon another: 
for whatever money value there is in it is put 
there by law. In other words, anything is money 
which the government makes a standard of pay- 
ment. 

It would seem that nothing more is needed to 
convince the thoughtful that money is a creation 
of law, and its value fixed by law. I will close 
my argument on this point by quoting the highest 
authority in the Republican party. John Sher- 
man, the late Secretary of the Treasury, is the 
man they swear by. We clip the following from 
his campaign speech in Ohio, in 1879, as pub- 
lished by the Chicago Tribune and other Repub- 
lican papers : 

" It (the government) may coin money and regulate 
its value. It may call ten grains of silver a dollar, and 
make it so ; or it may coin pot-metal into dollars." 

If human testimony and history prove any 
thing, then it is proven that the government can 
put its sovereign stamp upon anything capable of 
receiving the impress, and make it money. Mark 
you, I have not here contended that the relative 



AS A NATION. 235 

value of money to commodities cannot be 
changed: it can be — money can be made cheap 
or dear, high or low, by changing the quantity 
in circulation. But that does not change its 
money value — it changes only its relative value. 
A dollar will pay a dollar of debt, whether it be 
cheap or dear. When there is a large volume 
of money in circulation, more dollars can be 
obtained for a given amount of labor, and debts 
are easier paid. When the volume of money in 
circulation is small, it becomes dear, hard to get, 
and, of course, it is harder to pay debts. (For 
a very able discussion of this proposition, see 
quotation from Benjamin Franklin, further on.) 

The following from the A merican Cyclopaedia 
wilb be useful in this connection. It sustains my 
position. It contains the opinion of Aristotle, 
and much other valuable history, on the subject 
of money. It gives the true definition of money. 
Rer.d it, and then ask yourself how the pretense 
of modern Shylocks, that only gold and silver 
can be money, looks, in the light of this history. 
(See American Cyclopaedia, vol. xi, page 735 and 
following) : 

AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA QUOTED. 

" Money. — The currency of the realm or of the 
country. The standard of payment, whether of com. 
circulating notes or any other commodity. Anything 



236 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

which freely circulates from hand to hand, as a com- 
mon, acceptable medium of exchange, in any country, 
is, in such country, money, even though it cease to be 
such, or to possess any value in passing into another 
country. In a word, an article is determined to be 
money by reason of the performance by it of certain 
functions, without regard to its form or substance. 
. . . Baron Storch terms money the marvelous 
instrument to which we are indebted for our wealth and 
civilization. Mr. Harold Rogers has said: 'Just as the 
development of language is essential to the intellectual 
growth of a people, so is a medium of exchange to civ- 
ilization.' Aristotle says of it that ' it exists not 

BY NATURE BUT BY LAW.' 

" How true is this doctrine, or, at least, how patent 
is the law, under a civilized government, in imparting 
the quality of acceptibility for the payment of debts 
and the purchase of commodities to that which it 
recognizes as money, is clearly proved by the opera- 
tions of the Bank of Venice during several centuries, 
throughout which time its deposits, which were 
never payable, but only transferable on the books of 
the bank, were at a premium over coins, because they 
were the standard of payment furnished by the trade 
and used for all large transactions. Indeed, this bank 
money was that which established the money of account 
and in which the value of all coins was expressed, 

"The money of account of the bank of Venice, 
undisturbed for 500 years, had no coins to correspond 
with it, and the value of all coins was expressed in it. 

. . . "Very dissimilar substances have been made 
to serve as money. The Jews in addition to their 
ordinary money of shekels, talents and drachms of 
silver, had jewel money. Cattle was used as money 



AS A NATION. 237 

in ancient Greece, and in Rome tin was coined by 
Dionysius I. And Roman and British tin coins are 
known to exist. Leaden money is now current in the 
Burman empire. Platinum was coined in Russia from 
1828 to 1835. Pompilius, king of Rome about 700 B. 
C, made money both of wood and of leather. In 1874, 
when the city of Leyden was besieged by the Spaniards, 
leather was issued. In the fifteenth century, China 
used the middle bark of a mulberry tree as money, cut 
into round pieces and stamped with the mark of the 
sovereign. In Britain, as late as the Norman Conquest, 
two kinds of money were in use, known as living money 
and dead money. The former consisted of slaves and 
cattle, which were usually transferred with the soil, and 
the latter metal. 

" When the South Sea Islands were discovered, the 
natives first exchanged their products with the Euro- 
peans for beads or anything gaudy, which was offered 
them, but they soon discovered the value of iron uten- 
sils, and they freely exchanged anything they had for 
axes, hammers and nails, &c. Axes eventually were 
held in such estimation, that they became a standard 
of payment, and the basis of a money of account, the 
value of other articles being stated as so many axes. 
. . The skins of wild animals were used as money 
by the ancient Russians, and by some of the Indians 
on this Continent. And even by the people of Illinois, 
at an early day, raccoon and deer skins were so used. 
In 1574 quantities of pastboard were coined in Holland. 
Of the aboriginal money of the American Continent, 
from the mounds in and adjoining the valley of the 
Mississippi, specimens have been obtained composed 
of lignite, coal, bone, shell, terra cotta, mica, pearl, 
cornelian, chalcedony, agate, jasper, native gold, sil- 



2 38 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ver, copper, lead and iron, which were fashioned into 
forms evincing considerable skill in art. Cocoanuts 
were used as money in certain parts of the American 
continent, when the Europeans first visited it. Wam- 
pum was used by the Indians as currency, and about 
1635, was the prevailing one among the colonists of 
Massachusetts, was a legal tender, and was even coun- 
terfeited. About the same time corn and beans were 
used. . . . Musket balls passed for change at a 
farthing apiece and were a legal tender for sums under 
one shilling. . . . Adam Smith mentions that in 
Scotland about 1776 it was customary for workmen to 
carry nails as money to the bake shop and the ale 
house. Notched wood was used at one time in Eng- 
land." 

Lack of space prevents me from giving the 
whole article, or giving it in the order in which 
it is there given, but what is given, is in the 
exact words of the author, and in no case has 
the disconnection changed the •meaning of a 
word or sentence. I commend the reader to a 
careful perusal of the whole article as it appears 
in the Cyclopaedia. 

It demonstrates that money is not a creation 
of labor or nature, but of law. Indeed, as the 
Supreme Court has said, we do not understand 
this to be controverted by any sound and honest 
mind : it is only denied by our modern Shylocks, 
and their hirelings, who by false theories and 
specious pretenses are seeking to perpetuate a 
system of money, which, if allowed to continue in 



AS A NATION. 239 

this government, is just as sure to destroy our 
liberties as strichnine is to destroy human life 
when taken into the system. 



4-0 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



LECTURE VIII. 



PAYING THE BONDS IN GOLD. 



PAYING THE BONDS IN GOLD— THE WAY THE CAPITALISTS 
LOANED GOLD TO SAVE THE NATION'S LIFE— TESTIMONY OF 
SHERMAN AND OTHEES ON PAYING THE BONDS IN GOLD — WHAT 
SIX HUNDRED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WOULD DO FOR THE 
FREEDMAN— THE HONEST DOLLAR. 



I find, in a circular issued by the Republican 
State Committee of Wisconsin, in the year 1880, 
the following, in relation to the paying of the 
five-twenty bonds in gold: 

"A resolution, declaring the bonds of the government 
payable in gold, was introduced into Congress. . . . 
Thanks to the*Republican party — it was adopted." 

I noticed the same statement was made by 
Roscoe Conkling, in his campaign speeches in 
Ohio, in 1880, and it was greeted with applause. 
Whither are we drifting as a nation, when such 
sentiments as those will electrify an American 
audience? I wonder not that the capitalists 
have come to look upon this people as incapable 
of self-government, when they will applaud an 



AS A NATION. 24.I 

act so infamous as that which made the five- 
twenty bonds payable in gold. It was one of 
the most rascally deeds ever perpetrated, even 
by an unscrupulous money power. And the 
deed itself was not more villianous than the 
means used to accomplish it. 

It was first necessary to deceive the people 
into the belief that it would be dishonest to pay 
those bonds in anything but gold; and the whole 
political machinery of the Republican party, and 
so much of the Democratic party as was 
necessary to accomplish this purpose, was 
set in motion. Much was said about the 
patriotism of the capitalists loaning their money 
to the government. It was said to be very risky. 
The writer remembers when he thought, as most 
of the people did, that, in the dark hour of our 
country's peril, the monied men rushed to the 
rescue in vast number's, and, at great risk, laid 
their golden treasures on their country's altar, 
that the nation might live. It was that belief 
among the people which gave the national debt 
a sacredness in their minds, that no other debt 
possessed. 

The money power well knew how to work 
upon the honest and patriotic sentiment of the 
nation. 



242 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

THE WAY CAPITALISTS LOANED GOLD TO SAVE 
THE NATION'S LIFE. 

A very correct idea of the way the banks 
loaned gold to save the life of the nation may be 
gathered from the following. Peter Cooper, in 
an open letter to John Sherman, quotes Salmon 
P. Chase, as follows: 

"When I was Secretary of the Trersury, the question 
arose, how should the soldiers in the field and the 
sailors in the ships be fed ? I found that the banks of 
the country had suspended specie payment. What was 
I to do? The banks wanted me to borrow their credit, 
or pay interest on their credit. They did not pay gold, 
or propose to pay any themselves, but wanted me to 
buy their notes. I said: No, gentlemen; I will take 
the credit of the people, and cut it up into little bits of 
paper." 

This begins to show the true inwardness of 
the thing. 

In April, 1878, the Chicago Inter- Ocean was 
asked the following question: 

" How much did Congress borrow — that is, gold and 
silver — to carry on the war from 1861 to 1865, and from 
whom did we get the first loans, both in the United 
States and out of it ? '* 

The Inter -Ocean gave the following answer: 
" None. The receipts from customs were suffi- 
cient/' Here we have it. The banks were not 



AS A NATION. 243 

loaning gold, nor did they propose to loan any, but 
were very willing that the government should pay 
them interest on their notes. 

What patriotism! what rushing to the rescue 
of the government ! The truth is, no opportunity 
to cheat the government, or oppress the people, 
was left unimproved by the banks. There never 
was an hour during the whole war when their 
patriotism rose above their greed for gain. And 
the pretense, that the capitalists freely loaned 
their gold and silver to save the nation's life, is 
false. 

There was some gold loaned to the govern- 
ment early in the war, not to exceed eighty mil- 
lions, every dollar of which was paid long ago. 
And there were bonds sold for coin, to the great 
detriment of the nation, from January, 1875, to 
1877 to get silver to take the place of the frac- 
tional currency (about thirty million) ; but it will 
not be claimed that that was done to save the 
life of the nation. That was a speculation of 
John Sherman and the capitalists, ten years after 
the war was over. 

But as to the present bonded debt of the gov- 
ernment representing gold, loaned by the capi- 
talists to save the life of the nation, it represents 
no such thing. There is not a bond in existence 
that represents either gold or silver loaned to 
save the life ot the nation. The war-debt was 



244 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

originally represented by five-twenty bonds, every 
one of which was purchased with greenbacks, 
which, as John Sherman said, were purposely 
depreciated that they might seek investment in 
bonds. 

Now, a word on the risk in loaning money to 
the government. Did not the government fur- 
nish the best possible security for money at that 
time? Why, no, says Shy lock, the government 
was trembling on the very verge of ruin, it was 
liable to go out of existence any day. Well, if 
the government went out of existence, where 
was the security for any other investment. If 
the government had gone to ruin, where would 
have been the law to enforce the collection of 
private debts. Had the government gone down 
all would have been caos. Mortgages, as well 
as bonds whould have gone down with it. Hence 
it will be seen that instead of it being a risky 
investment, the government furnished the best 
possible security at that time, and the pretense 
that the risk was greater in loaning money to the 
government than in loaning on private security 
was a sham, no less apparent than their pretense 
that the capitalists came promptly to the aid of 
the government with their gold and silver. 

To get a clear idea of the injustice of paying 
the five-twenty bonds in gold, you should con- 
sider what the bonds cost the holder. Some 



AS A NATION. 245 

were more fortunate than others. Those who 
bought bonds when gold was highest were more 
fortunate than those who bought when gold was 
lowest. Let us see how it was with those who 
were the most lucky. In August, 1864, when 
gold was worth 285, a one-dollar greenback was 
worth about 35 cents in gold. Hence, it will be 
seen that a one hundred dollar bond purchased at 
that time would cost the purchaser about thirty 
dollars. The interest on that bond being payable 
in gold, would carry his interest, when reckoned 
in greenbacks, above 17 per cent., or ten per 
cent, above what he could have realized from his 
money loaned on private security under the laws 
of New York. Now, that ten per cent. I call 
extra interest, because it is ten per cent, over 
and above what the bondholder could have real- 
ized had the interest on his bond been payable in 
greenbacks and the greenbacks at par with gold ; 
hence those who invested in 1864, by 1869 had 
drawn nearly fifty cents extra in interest on a 
thirty-five cent investment; in other words, they 
had received back, in extra interest, more than 
they had loaned. 

Now had we paid the bonds in greenbacks in 
1869, they were then worth 75 cents on the dollar, 
or nearly twice as much as they were when they 
were exchanged for the bond in 1S64. We 
should have paid the bondholder not less than 



246 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

three times as much money as he had invested in 
bonds five years before. Does it seem possible 
that anything having the upright form of man 
could ask for more than to be paid about three 
times in five years for money he ought to have 
paid in taxes, instead of being permitted to invest 
it in bonds to draw interest from the people? 
Look at it. Think it over, and ask yourselves 
the question What kind of men they were that, 
after all the privileges they had enjoyed, could 
ask to have the whole thing paid in gold, which 
would add about six hundred million to the 
value of their bonds and a corresponding amount 
to the people's burdens. 

Those capitalists did it. They came forward 
with a face of flint and heart of stone, and 
demanded gold dollars for greenback dollars, 
which, when loaned, were worth from 35 to 70 
cents. 

Fellow-citizens, that was the resolution which, 
the Republican committee say, thanks to the 
Republican party, was adopted. 

Now, what did the Shylocks call the law, 
passed in 1869, which made the five-twenty 
bonds payable in gold? Why, they called it the 
credit-strengthening-act. They claimed that the 
law must be passed in order to strengthen the 
credit of the government. 

Will some one tell me how it was that the 



AS A NATION. 247 

credit of the government needed strengthening 
five years after the war was over, and the neces- 
sity for borrowing money had passed? Did 
the credit of the government need strengthening 
when her bonds were selling in New York 
market for from 10. 1-2 to 24.1-4 cents on the 
dollar, above their face value in the same kind of 
money that purchased them. ? The very day that 
Congress passed that infamous so-called credit- 
strengthening act, the five-twenty bonds were 
worth not less than 25 per cent, more in gold 
than they were the day the government sold 
them. 

No one can become acquainted with the 
circumstances under which that act was passed, 
and not know that it was one of the most gigantic 
swindles known to history; and yet, when 
Conkling & Co. boast that the Republican party 
did it, an American audience clap their hands, 
and shout glory. Why do they do it? Why, 
sir, it is because they have been misled by a 
shameless press, and demagogues in the employ 
of the money power. Not only did the stock 
jobbers violate every principle of right and 
decency by inspiring that act, but they violated 
the contract they had made with the people. 
Those five-twenty bonds were issued, the prin- 
cipal payable in currency (greenbacks), the 
interest payable in gold. And the greenbacks 



248 HITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

were made receivable for all debts, public and 
private, except duties on imports and the interest 
on the public debt, and so, of course, were a 
legal tender for the principal of the five-twenty 
bonds. But we have the humiliating spectacle 
before us of an immense number of American 
voters believing that it would have been dishon- 
esty to have paid those bonds in greenbacks. 

TESTIMONY OF SHERMAN AND OTHERS ON 
PAYING BONDS IN GOLD. 

Read what some of the ablest Republicans in 
Congress thought of the act at the time. I will 
first introduce John Sherman, late Secretary of 
the Treasury. In his famous letter to Mr. Mann, 
in 1868, he said: 

" The bondholder can demand only the kind of 
money he paid. He is a repudiator and extortioner to 
demand money more valuable than he gave." 

There is not an honest, common-sense citizen 
of this Republic who will not say Amen! to that 
sentiment. A man is a repudiator and extor- 
tioner to demand money more valuable than he 
gave. Yet, that is just what the bondholder did. 
He demanded money twice as valuable as the 
money he paid; and when the Republican leaders 
boast of having given it to him, their blind fol- 
lowers applaud. 



AS A NATION. 249 

Hear Judge Doolittle, of Wisconsin, then a 
Republican, sneaking on the same subject in 
Congress : 

" When these bonds were issued, the very law which 
authorized them to be issued declared that the legal 
tender notes, which were authorized to be issued, should 
be lawful money, and a legal tender in payment of 
every public debt, except the interest. When it is so 
declared in the law, and when you take into account 
the fact that what the government received was depre- 
ciated paper money, and depreciated on purpose, as 
the Finance Committee inform us, that the more of it 
might be purchased with a dollar of gold, the holders 
of these bonds knew they took them subject to that 
contingency." 

Here you have another witness, whose reputa- 
tion is untarnished, telling you that the com- 
mittee informed Congress that the greenback was 
purposely depreciated, that more of them might 
be bought with a dollar of gold; and, also, that 
the five-twenty bonds were payable in green- 
backs; Why, if they were issued payable in 
gold in the first place, why did they pass the 
credit-strengthening act of 1 869 ? Why, the very 
fact that they passed that law is proof positive 
that, before that time, the bonds were payable in 
greenbacks, else the law making them payable 
in gold was meaningless. In that infamous 
resolution, which made the bonds payable in 



250 ITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

gold, they use the words, " to remove all doubt/' 
etc. 

If there was any doubt as to those bonds being 
payable in greenbacks, was it not the plain duty 
of Congress, to give the people the benefit of 
that doubt, especially when we consider that by 
paying them in greenbacks, at that time, the 
bondholder would have received, on the average 
more than twice as much value as he had loaned, 
with the interest added. No honest man can 
see it in any other light. But there was no 
doubt* Hear grand old Thaddeus Stevens on 
the subject, and bear in mind the fact, that Mr. 
Stevens was a member of the committee, which 
drew the bill authorizing the issuing of the 
Greenback and the five-twenty bonds; he ought 
to understand, if anybody did, on that subject, in 
Congress, he spoke as follows: 

" If I knew that any party in this country would go 
for paying in coin that which is payable in currency 
(meaning the five-twenty bonds), thus enhancing its 
value one-half, if I knew there was such a platform, and 
such a determination on the part of anybody, I would 
vote on the other side. I would vote for no such swin- 
dle upon the tax-payers of this country. I would vote 
for no such speculation in favor of the large bondhold- 
ers, the millionares, who took advantage of our folly in 
granting them coin payment of interest." 

Who will not endorse those sentiments when 



AS A NATION. 25 I 

they come to understand how those bonds came 
into the hands of their owners, and the profit the 
owners had made on their investment, and who 
will not despise the villianous means used by the 
money power, to make the people believe that 
it would have been dishonest to have paid those 
bonds in greenbacks in 1869. Hear Gov. Morton, 
of Indiana, in a speech delivered in Congress, in 
1868, he spoke as follows: 

" When it is asserted that the government is bound 
to pay the five-twenty bonds in coin, I say that it is not 
only without lav/, but it is in express violation of at 
least four statutes. We should do foul injustice to the 
government and to the people of the United States, 
after we have sold these bonds, on an average, for not 
more than sixty cents on the dollar, now to propose to 
make a new contract for the benefit of the bondholder." 

The Republican party had no abler man in 
Congress than Oliver P. Morton. He said that 
to pay those bonds in coin would be to violate at 
least four statutes. He felt what the people will 
feel when they come to understand the matter, 
that it was foul injustice to them to make a new 
contract for the benefit of the bondholder, and 
pay him a dollar when he had loaned only about 
half that amount. Blind partisans may applaud 
the aet, but the honest historian will record it as 
a foul deed. 

Hear what another Republican Congressman, 



252 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

said on the subject. Mr. Norton, of Minnesota, 
in Congress, in 1868, said: 

" Sir, when this Congress pledges the faith of this 
nation to pay the five-twenty bonds in coin, they repu- 
diate the interest of the people, and impose upon them 
burdens which they ought not be required to bear." 

Is any thought more natural than that. " It 
imposed upon the people burdens which they 
ought not to be required to bear." 

I rind the following in the Ohio Reoublican 
Platform for 1868: 

" Resolved, That the Republican party pledges itself 
to the faithful payment of the public debt according to 
law, and we hereby express our conviction that accord- 
ing to the laws under which the five-twenty bonds were 
issued said bonds should be paid in the currency of the 
country, which may be a legal tender when the govern- 
ment may be prepared to redeem such bonds." 

Such sentiments were expressed in several 
Republican State platforms; but the leaders soon 
learned that the people were ignorant of the 
consequences, to them, of paying the bonds in 
gold; and Shylock grew bolder and bolder, and, 
having control of the press, he soon convinced 
the people, by false statements and false reason- 
ing, that the bonds ought to be paid in coin. 

I might continue to multiply testimony of the 
same kind from Republican sources, but I will 



AS A NATION. 253 

let the following statement, made by sturdy, old 
Ben Wade, of Ohio, in a letter, written at Wash- 
ington, December 13, 1867, suffice. It has 
passed into history, and is worthy of its illustrious 
author. He wrote as follows: 

" I am for the laboring portion of our people ; the 
rich can take care of themselves. While I must scrupu- 
lously live up to all the contracts of the government, 
and nght the bondholder as resolutely when he under- 
takes to get more than the pound of flesh. We never 
agreed to pay the five-twenties in gold ; no man can 
find it in the bond, and I never will consent to have 
one payment for the bondholder and another for the 
people. It would sink any party, and it ought to." 

Certainly, Mr. Wade; any sane man, believing 
in the honesty and intelligence of the American 
people, would decide at once that such an act 
would sink any party. But it did not; and the 
leaders in the devilish scheme now boast of that 
outrageous act before applauding thousands. 

WHAT SIX HUNDRED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS 
WOULD DO FOR THE FREEDMEN. 

If you will notice the difference between the 
price of gold and the greenback, at the time 
when the so-called credit strengthening act was 
passed, you will see that changing the payment 
of those bonds from greenbacks to coin, made a 
difference of about six hundred millions of dol- 



254 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

lars. That is to say, it made the bonds that 
much more valuable to the bondholder, and of 
course, that much harder for the people to pay. 
In other words, it took six hundred million dol- 
lars from the people and gave it to the bond- 
holders. Six hundred millions of dollars is an im- 
mense sum of money. Below I have made a 
calculation which will give some idea of what 
that act meant to the poor people of America. 

Educators, Ministers of the Gospel, as you are 
called, who are soliciting aid for the freedmen in 
the South, and mourning over the destitute con- 
dition of the colored people, and at the same 
time upholding the present dynasty; read it, and 
reflect soberly. What would that six hundred 
millions had done for the freedman had it been 
used in his interest, instead of the millionaire? 
Including West Virginia, there were fifteen 
slave states, we will reckon the townships in 
each state at twelve hundred. That gives us 
18,000 townships in the fifteen slave states. We 
will build six school houses in each township at 
a cost of five hundred dollars each, which is 
more than the average cost of school houses in 
the South. To build those houses will require 
only fifty-four millions of dollars of our money. 
Now, we will build them a church in every 
township, at a cost of one thousand dollars 
each, that will require eighteen millions dollars 



AS A NATION. 255 

more ot our money. The account will then 
stand thus — 

Cost of building 108,000 school houses, $500^54, 000,000 
" " 18,000 churches, $1,000, 18,000,000 



Total, . . $72,000,000 

which deducted from the $600,000,000 leaves a 
balance of $528,000,000. 

We have now built one church and six school 
houses in every township in the South, and have 
a balance of five hundred and twenty-eight mil- 
lion dollars left, which we will loan at 8 per cent, 
that will give us an annual interest income of 
$42,040,000. Now school houses are of no use 
without teachers, so from our interest income we 
will furnish teachers for every one of those school 
houses, six months in a year at thirty dollars per 
month, that will require $19,446,000 of our in- 
come. Now churches are of no benefit to the 
colored people, without preachers. So we will 
furnish every one of those churches with a 
preacher at a salary of five hundred dollars per 
year, and when the cost of living is taken into 
the account, a five hundred dollar -salary in the 
South, is as good as a thousand dollar salary in 
the North. The cost of ministers' salaries will be 
nine million per annum. When we have furnished 
school teachers and preachers, there will be a 



256 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

great many colored children, who will not have 
clothing fit to attend school and church, and five 
dollars will buy a suit that will answer every 
purpose for children, in that warm climate. So 
we will set apart ($3,000,000) three million dol- 
lars for that purpose. That would purchase 
suits for (600,000) six hundred thousand colored 
children. Stand them in a straight line, allow- 
ing three feet for each one, the line would extend 
about three hundred and sixty miles. No r, we 
have furnished teachers for their schools, preach- 
ers for their churches, and clothing for such as 
need it, and the account against our annual in- 
terest income stands as follows: 

Wages for 108,000 teachers six months, at 

#30 per month, . . . $19,440,000 

Salary for 18,000 ministers, $500 each, 9,000,000 



Total, . . $28, 440, 00a 

which deducted from our annual interest 

income, $42,040,000, leaves a balance of $13,600,000 

Hence it will be seen we could have built all 
the school houses and churches the colored people 
needed, and paid all their preachers and teachers, 
and clothed" their children, and then have left 
thirteen million six hundred thousand dollars of 
our annual income (almost a million to each 
State), an ample sum to relieve the numerous 
cases of destitution that might be expected to 



AS A NATION. 257 

arise among a class of people so unskilled in the 
business of life. 

Now, in the twelve years which have elapsed 
since 1869, those colored people would have 
learned enough of theology to do their own 
preaching, or find men among themselves capa- 
ble of doing it. * And certainly six months' 
schooling every year, for twelve years, would 
have brought forth competent teachers among 
them; so that they might safely be left to them- 
selves, so far as schools and churches are con- 
cerned. And during those years they might 
have learned something of self-reliance and the 
responsibilities of life. Low wages, the frowns 
of their old masters, and the buffetting of adverse 
circumstances, have prepared them to appreciate 
a home of their own, and to feel the necessity of 
surrounding it with the conveniences necessary 
to its comfort, protection and perpetuation. And 
it will be remembered that we have educated them 
with less than one-sixth of the amount of money 
we gave to the bondholder in 1869. We have 
five hundred and twenty-eight millions left to 
purchase homes for our colored brethren in the 
South. Well, we will say that there is one 
million families of freedmen; we will purchase 
forty acres of land for each family, at five dollars 
per acre; that will consume two hundred millions 
of the remaining fund. We will then build a 



258 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

home for each family, at a cost of three hundred 
dollars a piece; that consumes three hundred mil- 
lions more of the remaining fund. We now have 
twenty-eight millions left. We will furnish every 
family with a cow, at twenty dollars each, which 
which will require twenty millions more of the 
remaining fund. We now have eight millions 
left, which we will give them to purchase read- 
ing matter, including a copy of Willey's book, 
entitled " Whither Are We Drifting as a 
Nation," which will teach them to think and act 
for themselves, and not to leave their destinies in 
the hands of a power, which is, in every sense of 
the word, as inhuman as that which once sold 
them from the auction block. 

Now, you have before you, for consideration, 
some of the results of the credit-strengthening 
act, which made the five-twenty bonds payable 
in coin. 

Did not Oliver P. Morton, Indiana's great war 
governor, utter a truth when he said: 

" There is gathered around the Capital of this nation 
a gang of miserable stock jobbers, with no more con- 
science than pirates, inspired solely by a greed for 
gain, and they thundered successfully at these doors 
until they drove this government into the most prepos- 
terous acts of bad faith and legalized robbery that ever 
oppressed a free nation since the dawn of history." 

I would that those words of Senator Morton 



AS A NATION. 259 

could bq, heard to the ends of the earth in the 
voice that cleft the sea. They are true as truth 
itself. 

No man can defend the co-called credit- 
strengthening act; it is utterly indefensible. Had 
the amount of money wrenched from the people 
by that act been used for the benefit of the poor 
freedmen, they would have been the best cared for 
people on the earth. Every necessary want would 
have been satisfied, and the South made to bloom 
like a garden; or had that amount of money been 
expended in the interest of the poor people, North 
and South, it would have driven destitution 
from the land. But it was given to the million- 
aire, and the hirelings of the money power boast 
of it. A more enlightened age will stamp it as 
one of the blackest crimes known to the nine- 
teenth century, and wonder how a free people 
could tolerate the guilty perpetrators. 

Now, after all this base conduct of the monev 
power, in relation to our finances, it met under 
the guise of Republicanism, at Chicago, in 18S0, 
and insulted the intelligence of the American 
people by placing the following deceptive words 
in the resolutions adopted by that convention : 

" It (the Republican party) has given us a currency 
absolutely good, legal, and equal in every part of our 
extended country." 



260 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

What a burlesque on history. They omitted 
to tell the people that the Republican party, 
deceived and bullied by Shylock, put the excep- 
tion clause in the greenback, which made our 
currency unequal in every part of our extended 
country. 

Have I not proven, from the highest authority 
in the Republican party, that the exception 
clause in the greenback was what deprecia- 
ted it? Did not their own committee, with 
John Sherman at its head, testify that they 
depreciated the greenback, on purpose, that more 
of them might be bought with a dollar of gold? 
Now, is it not supremely ridiculous for them to 
talk about giving us a currency good and equal 
in every part of the country, when their own 
records prove that they made it unequal, that 
the bondholder might have gold while the people 
were obliged to take greenbacks, which the 
bondholder had depreciated that his gold might 
be more valuable? 

The sixty million treasury notes, which were 
made a full legal tender, were good, and equal 
to gold, in every part of the country. Why did 
they not make them all that way? If they 
had, they would have been equal to gold, 
and the gold gambler could not have sold his 
gold and pocketed the people's earnings. 



AS A NATION. 201 



HONEST DOLLAR. 



Through the false pretense that only gold and 
silver can be made money, Shylock was able to 
make the people believe that there was no other 
honest money. Shylock calls gold his honest 
dollar, and what an immense amount of money 
he has spent to make the people believe it; his 
orators have shouted " gold " from every plat- 
form. His politicians have screamed it from the 
street corners. Money sharks have yelled it from 
every broker's office, while the press ridiculed 
and persecuted every good citizen who was too 
honest or to sensible to join in the infamous cry; 
but did it never occur to you that they never 
offered gold to but one class of American citi- 
zens. 

The seamstress was plying her needle, day in 
and day out, week in and week out, making 
clothing for the soldier, and whenever her toilsome 
task was ended, whether from the demand hav- 
ing been supplied, or from exhausted nerves which 
could endure no longer, did those honest dollar 
men ask that she have gold for her pay? No. 
They placed in her weary hand a greenback 
purposely depreciated by the gold gambler, until 
it was not worth more than fifty cents to the dol- 
lar. She was obliged to receive it or go with- 
out her pay. She was innocent and honest. She 



262 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

received it as a patriotic duty, not knowing why 
it was depreciated, nor did the poor woman know 
that when she came to purchase her scanty 
supply of winter clothing about one-third of that 
hard-earned money would begin its journey, by 
an indirect route, to the broker's pocket, on 
Wall street. She was satisfied with the green- 
back. She asked for no more, and the govern- 
ment offered her no more, and Shy lock's press 
and demagogues never rebuked the government 
for paying her in that kind of money. Depre- 
ciated greenbacks were good enough for the 
poor seamstress. 

The hospital nurse sat by the soldier's sick- 
bed, watched through the long day, and on, 
through the lonely night, with tired hands, she 
smoothed his fevered brow, with aching heart 
she penned his last message to his friends 
at home, closed his eyes in death, and in a 
low, sweet voice, thanked Almighty God that 
strength had been given her to cheer the last 
hours of a dying patriot. And when that noble 
woman received, not her pay (for money cannot 
pay for such self-sacrificing devotion to the cause 
of humanity), but the trifling sum that would 
enable her to continue her efforts to relieve 
suffering, she received it in greenbacks, worth 
fifty cents on the dollar. She was satisfied. She 
asked for no more and the honest dollar men 



AS A NATION. 263 

never asked that she have gold. Greenbacks 
were good enough for the hospital nurse. 

The old man on the western slope of life, in 
the fading rays of his last sunset — his sons were 
in the army — he had toiled through sultry June, 
and bleak November; with aching back and 
limb he had gathered ten bushels of corn; he 
turned it over to the government to feed the 
soldiers, and received his pay in depreciated 
greenbacks. But the old man was honest and 
patriotic; he received them without a murmur; 
he asked for no more — and Shy lock's press and 
demagogues never asked that he have gold for 
his pay. Greenbacks were good enough for the 
old man, who furnished supplies to the army. 

The soldier received his sister's affectionate 
farewell, bade his brother a sad good bye — 
clasped a father's trembling hand — pressed a 
sweet babe to his heaving bosom — unloosed a 
wife's arms from about his neck, received the 
last kiss, dewey with the inspiration of a mother's 
love, and turned to see grief o'erspreading her 
dear old face, as her son's last foot-fails died on 
the distant air, as he walked forth to meet the 
foe. Now he shivers beneath a stormy southern 
sky, in the black midnight. Now, he marches 
in a heat almost tropical. Now, shot and shell 
scream through the air, and horses fly wild and 
riderless across the field. All day the battle rages 



264 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

and the sun goes down on less than half the num. 
ber it rose upon in the morning. The battalion ral- 
lies and retreats, retreats and rallies, and struggles 
on while sheets of flame leap against the mid- 
night sky; and finally, at the close of battles' 
mighty roar, are heard shouts of victory 
from the jaded hosts of the Union army. 
The surviving veteran flings himself upon the 
ground, to sleep among his dead and dying 
comrades, breathing air laden and stagnant 
with the stench of human gore, and pierced with 
groans of anguish from ten thousand bleeding 
victims. With the morning sun he rises, to 
plunge again into fierce conflict; a missile of 
death pierces his breast — he falls, maybe to be 
trampled beneath the hoofs of charging cavalry, 
or crushed by the wheels of flying artillery. His 
life blood ebbs away, his bones bleach in the 
enemy's soil, and a Southern sun burns upon his 
grave. But, while life was his, he marched, and 
fought, and suffered, and received his scanty pay, 
in purposely depreciated greenbacks; with this 
he was satisfied. 

Who did demand gold ? Why, that gang of 
money pirates demanded it and got it, they be- 
sieged Congress, and clamored for gold, and 
that, too, when the treasury was staggering 
beneath its burden, like a drunken man, and 
when death and mourning was at every hearth- 



AS A NATION. 265 

stone: tney cruelly depreciated the greenback, so 
that the soldier received only fifty cents when he 
had earned a dollar, while Shylock, who shared 
neither danger nor hardship, received a dollar for 
every fifty cents he had invested in bonds. Now, 
when the Shylocks had depreciated the greenback 
so as to enrich themselves by cheating the soldier 
and the laborer out of a share of their earnings, 
and had drawn gold interest on bonds pur- 
chased with depreciated greenbacks, and had 
also managed to get his bonds exempted from 
taxation, thus compelling the laboring people to 
pay the debt after fighting the battles — after all 
this — those shameless villians came forward and 
demanded gold for bonds, which, by the terms 
of the contract under which they were issued 
were payable in greenbacks ; and in that demand, 
they were backed by almost the entire leading- 
press of the country, and, of course, by the whole 
office-holding fraternity: And men who opposed 
the devilish scheme were denounced as dishon- 
est repudiators. 

Shylock and his servants, the press, never de- 
manded gold for the soldier while he lived, nor 
for his his wife and fatherless children, when the 
hero was de*ad. Greenbacks were good enough 
for them. 

While clamoring for an honest dollar for his 
own vast pockets, and never demanding gold for 



266 HITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the soldier, Shylock made the country's necessity 
his opportunity. He made money out of the peo- 
ple's woes. He made the nation's season of dis- 
aster his harvest time, and grew richer and richer 
while the country plunged deeper and deeper into 
debt. And, finally, he has seized the press, cor- 
rupted the avenues of intelligence, and threatens 
us with a centralized government, in which he 
can continue his system of robbery, and defy 
all the powers of the people to prevent it. 



AS A NATION. 267 



LECTURE IX. 

LOWERING PRICES. 

LOWERING PRICES — OVER-PRODUCTION AND EXTRAVAGANCE — 
UNDERCONSUMPTION— CHANGING THE PRICE OF MONEY RELA- 
TIVE TO COMMODITIES— WHAT PRODUCED THE DISASTER OF 
OF 1873— THE AMOUNT OF CONTRACTION— THE WAY THE CUR- 
RENCY WAS CONTRACTED— NUMBER OF FAILURES FROM 1865 
TO 1878— TESTIMONY OF JOHN SHERMAN AND OTHERS ON THE 
EFFECTS OF THE CONTRACTION POLICY — THE PEOPLE HAND- 
ING THEIR PROPERTY OVER TO THEIR OPPRESSORS. 

It may be safely said, that of all the schemes 
invented by avarice to rob labor of its earnings 
and concentrate the wealth of a nation in the 
hands of a few, that of lowering the price of 
commodities, and raising the price of money, is 
the most potent and cruel, as well as the most 
certain. Only one result can follow, viz: the 
enriching of the monied capitalist, and the 
impoverishment of labor. The scheme is not 
new — it is an old trick of the money power; it 
has blasted the hopes of the masses of Europe, 
and well nigh closed the door of advancement 
in the face of young America. It brought the 
disaster of 1873, and all the attending suffering 
upon this nation, and took, directly and indirectly, 



2 63 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

at least one-half of the people's property from 
them, and handed it over to the money power. 
Now, if this statement is true, it is a shocking 
truth, and I expect you to start a little as I 
make it. I do not expect you to believe it 
until you are obliged to. It is not easy to believe 
that we have a set of leaders base and cruel enough 
wilfully and deliberately, to bring upon this 
country such a terrible disaster as that of 1873, 
or that the people could be so blind to their own 
interest, as to permit it to be done. But if you will 
follow me, through this lecture, I will compel 
you to believe it. It happens to be one of those 
propositions that can be proven so clearly that 
doubt is impossible. It has been proven ten 
thousand times; but we could not get the people 
to listen to the evidence. The money power 
had their confidence; and when they grum- 
bled at the weight of their burdens, it would 
say to them, in a very persuasive tone, " Now 
close your eyes and open your mouth, and swal- 
low whatever we give you; don't be afraid — it 
will be good for you;" and the people would swal- 
low the dose. Sometimes it would taste very 
bitter in the mouth, and cause sickness at the 
stomach. Then the press would combine to 
make them believe that the fault was in their 
taste and not in the medicine; and in a majority 
of cases the press has been successful. At any 



AS A NATION. 269 

rate, the people have been kept trudging in the 
ruts and bearing their burdens quite contentedly. 

It needs no argument to prove that great 
disaster came upon this nation in 1873; for all 
except the monied class felt its crushing weight. 

Various causes have been assigned for that 
disaster. 

OVER-PRODUCTION AND EXTRAVAGANCE. 

The Shylocks were early on hand with a 
reason which threw most of the blame upon the 
people. They said that the disaster was brought 
about by over-production of commodities, and 
extravagance on the part of the people. Yes, 
sir; the money power proclaimed it all over 
the land, through their press and orators, that 
the hard times of 1873, was the result of extra- 
vagance and over-production. And at the same 
time they pointed out a remedy. And do you 
remember what that remedy was? It was that 
the people should work harder and be more 
economical. 

Now, let us examine this theory a little. If 
over-production was the cause of the hard times, 
it is easy to see that Shylock's remedy was not a 
good one. It could only aggravate the disease; 
because^ to have been more economical would 
have been to consume less of what had already 
been produced, and that would leave the over- 



270 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

production greater; while to have worked harder 
would have been to add to a production, already 
claimed to be too great, and thus would have in- 
creased the difficulty which needed to be rem- 
edied. 

It will be seen, at a glance, that if over-pro. 
duction had caused the disaster, a greater dili- 
gence on the part of the people would have added 
to their misery — too much had been produced 
already. Had over-production been the cause of 
the trouble, it would have been folly to have 
asked God to bless you with a more abundant 
harvest, for, according to Shylock's theory, 
the harvest had been too abundant already. 
Fellow-citizens, is not that over - production 
theory rather thin? 

Now, let us examine Shylock r s theory of 
extravagance. In the year 1877, I had a convex 
sation on the cause of the hard times of 1873 and 
3^ears following, with a gentleman who was prin- 
cipal in a high school at the time, and he said to 
me: 

" Mr. Willey, this whole trouble is caused by 
extravagance; the people have brought it upon 
themselves. I have a neighbor who is eating his 
pound of beefsteak every day, when a pint of 
cornmeal would answer his purpose just as well." 

Now, I do not pretend that there were no 
families living beyond their means, for there 



AS A NATION. 27 1 

were, and many families have brought poverty 
upon themselves by extravagance, and the pro- 
fessor's neighbor may have been spending more 
money for beef than his income would warrant; 
but his was an exceptional case, and when made 
a rule explodes the professor's whole theory. To 
illustrate : 

We will have his friend change from beef to 
cornmeal, and the whole city of which he is a 
resident do likewise; for, of course, to have the 
argument hold good, the professor must prove 
that if everybody were to do as his friend did, 
the result would be loss to all, and if everybody 
did the opposite the result would be gain to all ; 
that is to say, if everybody would make a pint 
of cornmeal take the place of a pound of beef all 
would be gainers — else his theory could not be 
made to account for general hard times or the 
disaster of 1873. 

In trade we are mutually dependent upon each 
other; the prosperity of one branch of business 
depends largely upon the prosperity of other 
branches of business. For illustration: A city 
of fifty thousand inhabitants is consuming fifty 
thousand pounds of beef per day, at a cost to 
them of three thousand dollars. 

Now, the professor's theory is, that, should 
they change from beef, at six cents per pound, to 
a pint of corn-meal, at one cent per pint, they 



2^2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

would save the difference. The professor has 
not looked far enough ahead to see that they 
would save it only in the first instance: it would 
react upon them, and they would soon lose again 
in the falling off of their income from the country. 

The prosperity of the city depends upon the 
prosperity of the surrounding country, and the 
prosperity of the surrounding country depends 
upon the prosperity of the city; that is to say, if 
the city purchases liberally of the country, that 
puts the country in a condition to purchase liber* 
ally from the city. 

Now, for the fifty thousand pounds of beef 
which the city consumes daily, the farmers, at 
six cents per pound, would receive three thou- 
sand dollars; that would put the farmers in a 
good condition to purchase liberally from the 
city; but should the city use corn-meal at one 
cent per pint, instead of beef at six cents per 
pound, the farmers' daily receipts from the city 
would be only five hundred dollars. By the 
change the farmers' income is made much less, 
and, of course, it follows, as a necessity, that he 
must purchase much less from the city; for a 
man's purchases are not limited so much by his 
necessities as they are by his means to purchase. 
And in the same proportion that the farmers 
have lost their power to purchase, the city has. 



AS A NATION. 273 

lost its power to sell. And the result is, general 
hard times. 

To further illustrate : We will admit that B, 
the farmer, has been extravagant — he has pur- 
chased a buggy, when the old wagon would 
have answered his purpose. Well, what has 
become of the money which he paid for the 
buggy? The carriage-maker received it, and 
paid some to the wood-worker, some to the car- 
riage trimmer, some to the painter, some to the 
blacksmith, some to the putty maker, some to 
the barber, some to the doctor, some to the dry 
goods merchant, some to the shoemaker, some 
to. the tinner, some to the grocer, some to the 
butcher, and so on ; and they in turn were paying 
it back to the farmer again for the products of 
his farm. So, it will be seen that what might be 
denominated extravagance, in an individual case, 
would be economy when practiced by the whole 
producing class, because their liberal purchases 
would keep the mechanics and non-producing 
classes employed at their own business; whereas, 
if the producing class ceased purchasing, the 
mechanics would be thrown out of employment and 
become farmers, increasing production without a 
corresponding increase in consumption; in which 
case the farmer would be forced to sell his pro- 
duce at lower prices, because those who were 
once purchasers of the products of his labor have 



274 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

not only ceased to purchase, but have become 
his competitors in market for the sale of the 
same commodities. 

Hence, you see that in a philosophic view of 
the case, the result of the farmers' large pur- 
chases would be a higher price for his beef, corn, 
and whatever he could raise to sell. Now, some 
people are extravagant, and those who will live 
beyond their means in good times, will do the 
same in hard times, in a like proportion. 

But where were the evidences of extravagance 
among the people in 1873? Was it in the super- 
abundance of carriages and costly equipages 
lying loose about their stables? Was it in rich 
furniture and gaudy trappings in their houses? 
Did their wives glide in costly slippers over 
velvet carpets, gaze on frescoed walls, or feast 
their e} T es on imported pictures and costly stat- 
uary? When the farmer returned at night, after 
his daily battle with rude and rugged nature, on 
the prairie or in the forest, did sweet strains from 
a Chickering or a Steinway cheer his drooping 
spirits, or solace his weary, evening hour? No; 
unless, perchance, the kind evening breeze wafted 
a strain from the rich man's parlor in yonder 
town. The farmer found his music in the twitter 
of the swallow, the song of the woodland bird 
and the lowing of his herd. And his industrious 
and frugal wife gazed upon naked walls, scrubbed 



AS A NATION. 275 

bare floors and rode to town in a lumber wagon. 
The toilers had earned all the luxuries that adorn, 
beautify and make a home enjoyable; but, as a 
rule, they were without them. 

Now, where was the evidence of overproduc- 
tion? Did the fact that men were going with 
their toes out of their boots prove that there 
were too many shoes in the market, or did it 
prove their inability to purchase them? Did the 
fact that families were riding to church in lumber 
wagons prove that there were too many buggies 
manufactured, or did it prove inability to 
purchase them? Did the fact that there were 
an unusually large number of half-clad children 
all over the country prove that there was too 
much clothing in market, or did it prove the 
inability of the people to purchase it ? Did the 
fact that gaunt hunger stalked abroad in the land 
prove that there was too much provision in 
market, or did it prove inability to purchase 
them ? Why, ten thousand carloads of grain was 
passing hungry families, on its way to Europe. 

The theory that extravagance and over- 
production caused the disaster of 1873 will 
not do; it is incorrect and unphilosophic; in 
short, it is a wicked lie, and the money power 
know it. It was gotten up to prevent the 
people from learning the real cause of their 
suffering. 



276 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

UNDER-CONSUMPTION. 

There was no overproduction in 1873; but 
there was under-consumption, caused by the 
poverty brought upon the people by the mone}* 
power, as I shall plainly show. 

I will here make a rough calculation, which 
will illustrate the effects of under-consumption 
upon the market and the people: I will say that 
Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis together, in 
1873, received each day five thousand beef cattle 
(which, probably, is not far from corfect), and 
that each beef dressed 600 lbs. ; their combined 
daily receipts would then be 3,000,000 pounds 
At that time there were, say, eight million fam- 
ilies in the United States. To keep well 
within the range of probability, we will say 
that one-half of those families were not affected 
by the hard times, while the other half were 
so affected as to compel them to curtail their 
meat expenses to the extent of one pound per 
day for each family. A small amount for a 
family of five. 

We will say, then, there were four million 
families thus affected, and who consumed one 
pound less each, per day. That amount of under- 
consumption would leave four million pounds of 
beef in the hands of the producers every day; or 
about one-fourth more than the combined receipts 



AS A NATION. 277 

of those great cattle marts — Chicago, Cincinnati 
and St. Louis. 

Thus it will be seen that a very small under- 
consumption on the part of forty millions of 
people would leave beef to accumulate on the 
market very fast. 

The butter crop of Wisconsin, in 1880, was 
something over two million pounds. Now, we 
will say that, during the crisis of 1873, four 
million families curtailed their butter expenses to 
the extent of only one pound per week (and will 
it be pretended that it was less than that). That 
amount of falling off in the consumption of butter 
would amount to four million pounds per week, 
two hundred and eight million pounds per year, or 
more than nine times the entire butter crop of the 
state of Wisconsin. Probably the surplus crop 
of not less than fifteen agricultural states would 
be left to accumulate in the hands of the pro- 
ducers, as a result of that amount of under-con- 
sumption. 

Allowing a shoemaker to be capable of making 
two pairs of boots or shoes every day for three 
hundred days, and one-half the American people 
to purchase one pair less in a year, in consequence 
of hard times, that amount of under-consumption 
would throw more than forty thousand shoe- 
makers out of employment. And the same 
principle will apply to all branches of industry. 



278 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

When the people cannot purchase their usual 
supply of boots and shoes, shoemakers are thrown 
out of employment. When women are obliged 
to curtail their dress expenses, milliners and 
dressmakers are thrown out of employment. 
When farmers are obliged to work their horses 
without shoes, blacksmiths are thrown out of 
employment. When the people cannot afford to 
build or repair their houses, carpenters are 
thrown out of employment. And when the 
artisan is out of employment, business is dull; 
people curtail their expense of living, purchase 
less, and that leaves a surplus on the market, 
and prices must fall. Then the debtor class, 
who had relied on certain prices for the product 
of their labor to pay their debts, are disappointed, 
find themselves unable to meet their obligations, 
and their property passes into the hands of the 
mortgagee. In other words, they are obliged to 
hand it over to the money-loaning class. 

So it was in 1873, when the money power 
condemned to their own use not less than one- 
half of the people's property, and thus secured a 
large share of the earnings of labor for all time, 
unless a change takes place in our financial 
system. 



AS A NATION. 279 

CHANGING THE PRICE OF MONEY RELATIVE TO 
COMMODITIES. 

Well, " How was it done? " is the question. It 
was done by legislation, by legislating to raise 
the price of money, which is only another word 
for lowering the price of other kinds of property. 
But how can the price of money be raised by 
legislation? Why, by making the volume 
smaller, by reducing the quantity in circulation. 
The relative value of money to commodities can 
be changed, just as the relative value of com- 
modities to money can be changed — by changing 
their relative quantities. That is to say, when 
wheat is scarce and money plenty, it requires a 
great deal of money to buy a little wheat ; then 
we say the price of wheat is high. When wheat 
is plenty and money scarce, it requires a great 
deal of wheat to buy a little money : then we 
say the price of money is high. 

If Congress could legislate to compel every 
farmer in the country to burn one-half of his 
crop, and if the volume of money was left undis- 
turbed, the relative value of farm products to 
money would change, it would become greater, 
and a bushel of corn would purchase more 
money, because the quantity of corn in the 
country has been reduced, while the quantity of 
money remains the same. That would be 



280 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

against the pockets of the moniecl class, because 
if would require more of their money to pur- 
chase a given amount of produce. 

On the other hand, if Congress should legis- 
late to compel the Secretary of the Treasury to 
burn one-half of the money in the country, as it 
is paid into the treasury, and the quantity of 
produce was allowed to remain undisturbed, the 
relative value, of money to produce,would change ; 
it would become greater, because the quantity of 
money has been reduced, while the quantity of 
produce has not, and that would be against the 
pockets of the people, because it would require 
more of the products of their labor to purchase a 
given quantity of money. But it would be 
playing into the hands of monied men, because it 
would raise the value, or price, of their money, 
at the expense of the producing classes. 

To lessen the quantity of wheat is to raise its 
price, or change its value relative to whatever is 
exchanged for it, and the same principle applies 
to money. Change the quantity of money and 
its value is changed relative to every other com- 
modity. Because it is the medium by which all 
other commodities are exchanged; in other 
words, it is used to purchase every other species 
of property. 

Make the volume of money in a country larger 
and its nrice will fall. Make the volume smaller 



AS A NATION. 28 1 

and its price will raise. Or, which is the same 
thing in effect upon the people and industries of 
the country, when the volume of money is made 
larger the prices of commodities raise; then the 
debtor class can pay their debts and flourish. 
When the volume is contracted, or made smaller, 
the prices of commodities fall, and the debtor class 
can not pay their debts, lose their property, and 
suffering follows. 

Now, does not your common sense endorse 
this theory? Certainly it must. But the leaders 
of the two old parties dispute it. They claim that 
the price of gold does not change, and I find the 
following in a work entitled " Bryant on 
Money:" 

The author quotes the Boston Herald, of Jan- 
uary 29, 1879, page 9, as follows: 

" Gold does not vary in the bullion markets of the 
world ; it is the standard of value, fixed and immutable. 
Silver, on the contrary, possesses, at present, no pre- 
tensions to stability of value." 

Have I not proven, conclusively, in a former 
lecture, that the opposite is true? Does not the 
table showing the prices of gold, as given in Gen. 
Logan's speech, and quoted by me, stamp the 
Herald } s statement as false? 

Mr. Bryant, on same page, in speaking of the 
great German philosopher, says : 



282 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

"Humboldt says that the gold and silver money in 
circulation in the eighteenth century is — at the time he 
wrote — thirty times greater than in the fifteenth 
century, and that its value or purchasing power was 
only one-twelfth of what it then was — that is, 8.1-3 
cents would then buy as much as 100 would at the time 
he wrote." 

Here it will be seen that the increase in 
quantity of money was followed by a decrease 
in its purchasing power. 

Mr. Bryant also quotes Prof. Bonamy Price, 
as follows: 

" The purchasing power of the so-called precious 
metals has fallen fourteen times since the reign of the 
Henrys — that is, 7.1-7 cents would then buy as much as 
a dollar would now." 

I also copy the following from Mr. Bryant's 
work, page 8: 

"Albert Gallatin, ex-Secretary of the United States 
Treasury, in his work on Money, published 1831, in 
says : 

" ' It is well known that the discovery of America was 
followed by a great and permanent fall in the price — 
purchasing power — of the precious metals,which reduced 
it to one-fourth of their previous relative value to all 
other commodities.' 

" William Stanley Jevons, Professor of Political Econ 
omy and Logic, in Owen University, England, and for- 
merly of the Sidney Royal Mint, in his exhaustive and 
masterly examination into the depreciation of the pur- 



AS A NATION. 283 

chasing power of gold from 1789 to 1809, and of its 
appreciated purchasing power from 1809 to 1849, prior 
to the discovery of California and Australia, says: 

" ' From 1789 to 1809 it fell 45 per cent, From 1809 
,to 1849 it rose in value 145 per cent.' 

*' The very eminent Er. Soetbeer, of Germany, gives 
the following as the yield of gold and silver at about 
the following periods of time ; 



1500, 


$ 730,000 


1700, 


$ 22,265,000 


1550, 


2,920,000 


i75°> 


35,710,000 


1600, 


10,950,000 


1800, 


55,480,000 


1650, 


17,155,000 


1850, 


129,575,000 



" The yield in 1855 had advanced to the vast sum of 
$180,000,000 

Here we have the same principle illustrated, 
and the same fact proven, viz., that the price of 
gold changes with a change in quantity, the 
same as every other commodity. 

Now hear McCulloch, the great Scotch writer 
on Political Economy. He says: 

"It appears that, whatever may be the 7naterial oi 
the money of a country, whether it consists of gold, 
silver, copper, iron, salt, cowries or paper, and how- 
ever destitute it may be of any intrinsic value, it is yet 
possible, by sufficiently limiting the quantity, to raise 
its value in exchange to any conceivable extent." 

It is useless to multiply testimony to prove 
that a change in the quantity of money changes 
its value relative to commodities: It is a fact, 
which is not disputed by any writer on political 



284 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

economy on earth. That the price of labor, and 
all the products of labor, are affected by a change 
in the quantity of money in circulation, and that 
a contraction of the currency means a fall in 
prices, are facts too self-evident, to need demon- 
strating; yet I will quote an author or two on 
the subject: 

John Stuart Mill, a very prominent writer on 
political economy, says: 

"If the whole money in circulation was doubled, 
prices would double." 

Ricardo, another eminent writer on the same 
subject, says: 

" That commodities would rise in price, in proportion 
to the increase or diminution of money, I assume to be 
a fact that is uncontrovertible." 

Of course, that prices go up and down as the 
volume of money increases or diminishes is a 
fact quite indisputable. And think you that 
those editors and stumpers, who are engaged 
in deceiving the people, do not know it? Well 
they know that there is no difference of opinion 
on this subject among writers on political 
economy; and if there was, our own experience, 
in our own country, demonstrates the truth of 
my proposition. 

The money value or debt-paying power of a 



AS A NATION. 285 

medium of exchange is given it by law, as I 
have proven in a former lecture, and can be 
changed only by law: but its value, relative to 
commodities, can be changed by changing the 
quantity. Having already proven that extrava- 
gance and over-production did not, and could 
not produce the disaster of 1873, let us now pro- 
ceed to inquire what did produce that disaster. 

WHAT BROUGHT THE DISASTER OF 1 873. 

That the disaster was caused indirectly by a 
fall of prices, is without question. The people 
had adjusted their business matters and based 
all their calculations for the future, upon 
the prices as they were from 1865 to 1870. 
The farmer knew how many acres he could culti- 
vate; and if he could depend upon getting two 
dollars per bushel for wheat, and could reasona- 
bly expect fifteen bushels per acre, he could, on 
that basis, form an intelligent opinion as to 
whether he could safely purchase another eighty 
acres, for the purpose of starting his faithful son 
in life, with better prospects than he had started 
with himself. He calculates carefully, and makes 
an allowance of one-fourth for accident, chinch 
bugs, etc., and, deeming it safe, he purchases 
the land, with the expectation of paying for it 
with money he expects to realize from the sale 



286 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of his wheat. No accident befalls his crop. 
Heaven kisses the earth in genial showers. The 
sun sheds its rays on beautiful fields of waving 
grain, and nature smiles on an abundant harvest. 
But, from some cause which he does not under- 
stand, the price of wheat falls more than one- 
half. So, notwithstanding the bounty of nature, 
the farmer finds himself unable to meet his pay- 
ments. It will require two thousand bushels of 
wheat to pay the same debt now which one 
thousand bushels would have paid before the 
shrinkage took place. He also finds it hard 
to pay his grocer and shoemaker, and they in 
turn find it hard to meet their obligations, and 
disaster and hard times follow, failures begin to 
multiply, and all except the monied men are on 
short rations. 

I have already proven that a shrinking, in the 
volume of money, would cause a fall in prices. 
Now, if I can show that the volume of money 
was shrunken, and also that it was shrunken by 
legislation, then we will not be at a loss to know 
the cause of falling prices, and consequent disaster 
and hard times. 

Our volume of money was shrunken on the 
recommendation of Hugh McCulloch, while 
Secretary of the Treasury, in 1865. 

In his report he says: 



AS A NATION. 287 

" The rapidity with which the government notes can 
be withdrawn will depend upon the ability of the secre- 
tary to dispose of securities. The secretary, therefore, 
Tespectfully, but most earnestly, recommends, 

" First, That Congress declare that the compound 
interest notes shall cease to be a legal tender; 

"Second, That the secretary be authorized to sell 
bonds of the United States bearing interest at a rate 
not exceeding 6 per cent., for the purpose of retiring 
not only compound interest, but the United States 
notes. 

" The first thing to be done is to establish a policy of 
contraction." 

Congress authorized this contraction, by a 
resolution, passed December 18, 1865 ; and it 
was under the policy so authorized that the 
volume of currency was contracted, and the price 
of money raised, and that of commodities 
lowered. 

THE AMOUNT OF CONTRACTION. 

But since it has been sometimes disputed that 
there was any contraction of the currency, I will 
here demonstrate both the fact and the amount 
of contraction. Though it would seem impos- 
sible that any man of ordinary intelligence would 
deny a fact so important and widely known. 

In June, in 1864, there was in circulation, in 
round numbers, money as follows: 



288 



WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



Greenbacks - - - 

Postal fractional currency 
Interest-bearing legal tenders 
Certificates of indebtedness 
National Bank notes 
Old State Bank circulation - 



Total, .... 

According to the records, there were 
outstanding in October, 1865, $836,- 
000,000 of seven-thirty treasury notes, 
which Assistant Secretary Spinner 
said were engraved, stamped and 
paid out to the soldiers, as legal 
tender money when the war closed. 



> 431,000,000 

22,000,00a 

168,000,000 

160,000,000 

25,000,000 

135,000,000 

$941,000,000 



$830,000,000- 



Making a total, in round numbers, of $1,771,000,000- 

Now, we have $360,000,000 greenbacks, 
instead of the $431,000,000 we then had. The 
$168,000,000 interest-bearing legal tenders have 
disappeared, The $135,000,000 old State Bank 
notes have disappeared. The $830,000,000 
seven-thirty treasury notes have disappeared. 
And John Sherman's report for June 30, 1873, 
shows the whole amount of paper circulation to 
have been $750,062,000. The contraction 
account would then stand thus: 



Paper in circulation in 1865, about 
In 1873 

Total contraction - 



- $1,771,000,000 

750.000,000 

- $1,021,000,000 



AS A NATION. 289 

These are not the exact figures, but they are 
approximately correct. 

In 1874, in his speech in Congress, reported 
page 139 of appendix to Congressional Record, 
for that year, John A. Logan, of Illinois, said: 

"The circulating medium has been contracted 
$1,018,167,784:" 

And, in support of this statement, he refers 
senators to a book, written by the secretary him- 
self, pages 94 and 96. 

The Chicago Inter- Ocean, in answer to a 
letter, dated at Schonburg, Iowa, July 1, 18787 
asking the question " What has been the amount 
of money in circulation, each year, since 1865? " 
says: 

" We have heretofore re-published this table, and 
those who wish it for reference should preserve it: 

Amount per 
Year. Currency. Population. capita. 

1865 $1,651,283,373 34,819,581 $47-42 

1866 1,803,702.726 35,537,148 56.76 

1867 1,330,414,677 36,269,502 36.6S 

1868 417,199,773 37,016,989 22.08 

1869 750,025,089 37,779,860 19.19 

1870 740,039,179 3 8 >55 8 >37i i9- 10 

1871 734,244,774 39'75°>°73 18.47 

18 72 736,348,912 40,978,607 17.97 

18 73 73 8 > 2 9 I *749 42,245,110 17. 48 
* 8 74 779,°3 1 >5 8 9 43<55°<75 6 J 7- 8 9 
l8 75 77 8 > 176, 250 44,896,705 17.33 
* 8 76 735<35 8 > 8 3 2 46,285,344 15.89 
1877 696,443,394 47,714,829 14.60 



290 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" The currency included in the above amounts com- 
prises demand and one and two-year treasury notes 
authorized by the acts of December 27, 1857 ; Decem- 
ber 17, i860, and March 2, 1861 ; temporary ten-day 
loans, and one-year certificates of indebtedness ; 
treasury notes, payable in two years and in sixty days ; 
seven thirty-three-year notes, compound interest notes, 
3-per cent, certificates, non-interest bearing demand 
and legal tender notes, fractional currency, state bank 
notes, and national bank notes." 

The reader will remember, when the hirelings 
of the money power have pretended to discuss 
the financial question, they have studiously 
avoided mentioning the fact that there has been 
any money in circulation, except greenbacks and 
national bank notes; and, inasmuch as the con- 
traction in the greenback was not so great as in 
other kinds of money, they were able to mislead 
the people with regard to the amount of con- 
traction that had taken place. Then they made 
no mention of the fact that the population was 
increasing — which had the effect to lower prices 
— for the reason that the quantity of money in 
the country did not increase so as to keep pace 
with the increase in population and business 
demands: and that kind of contraction is just 
as efficient in lowering prices as any other, 
because it leaves the quantity of money smaller 
in proportion to the amount of business to be 
done. 



AS A NATION. 29I 

The following, from President's Grant's mes- 
sage for 1873, page 13, ought to be conclusive. 
He says: 

" In view of the great actual contraction that has 
taken place in the currency, and the comparative con- 
traction continuously going on, due to the increase of 
population, increase of manufactures, and all the indus- 
tries, I do not believe there is too much of it now, for 
the dullest season of the year." 

" During the last four years the currency has been 
contracted directedly by the withdrawal of three per 
cent, certificates, compound interest notes, and seven- 
thirty bonds outstanding on the fourth of March, 1869, 
the amount of sixty-four millions of dollars. During 
the same period there has been a much larger compar- 
ative contraction, due to the increase of population, 
manufacturers," etc. 

THE WAY THE CURRENCY WAS CONTRACTED. 

As strange as it may seem, to those who have 
studied the currency question, I find many, and 
I believe a majority of the old parties, and 
especially the Republicans, who do not know 
just how the currency was contracted. Their 
papers have kept them in ignorance in regard to 
that matter as much as possible. For their 
benefit, I will here state that those certificates of 
indebtedness — compound interest notes, seven- 
thirty treasury notes — referred to by Gen. Grant 



292 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

in his message, and other issues of a similar kind, 
among which were the non-interest-bearing 
treasury notes (commonly called greenbacks), 
had been issued by the government, and paid out 
to the people for supplies for the army, and to the 
soldiers for their services. And, of course, 
through the channels of trade, that money had 
found its way into the hands of business men, 
and thence to the banker and money loaner. 

Just here the capitalists managed to get into 
Congress in sufficient numbers to control it. The 
people were foolish enough to elect those men to 
Congress; then all they had to do was to con- 
tract with themselves, to give themselves bonds 
drawing 6 per cent, interest for that money — 
that is to say, the government said, in effect, to 
men having a thousand dollars in greenbacks, 
interest-bearing or non-interest-bearing, if you 
will give me (the government) your thousand 
dollars, I (the government) will burn and destroy 
the thousand dollars; but I will give you instead 
a thousand-dollar bond drawing 6 per cent, 
interest. Thus it will be seen that the thousand 
dollars is taken out of circulation, and the cur- 
rency is contracted that much. And the people, 
now have a thousand dollar-bond to pay interest 
on, in the hand of the Shylock, instead of the 
money to do business with. 

That is the way the currency was contracted 



AS A NATION. 293 

more than one billion dollars; that was the con- 
traction policy inaugurated by the resolution of 
Congress, in December, 1866. The people's 
money and prosperity was destroyed at the same 
time, and by the same act. 

(For money burned and destroyed, see Secre- 
tary Bristow's treasury report, under head of 
destruction account.) 

Here, reader, look at the Inter- Ocean's state- 
ment before quoted showing the amount of con- 
traction that took place each year, from 1865 
to 1878, and then study the account of busi- 
ness failures as given by Dunn, Barlow & Co., 
New York. See how perfectly the failures 
keep pace with the contraction of the currency: 





Number of 




Year. 


failures. 


Amount. 


1865 


53o 


$ 17,625,000 


1866 


632 


47,333,000 


1867 


2,386 


86,218,000 


1868 


6,606 


63,774,000 


1869 


2,799 


75,054,000 


1870 


3>55i 


88,242,000 


1871 


2 '9!5 


85,252,000 


1872 


4,069 


121,056,000 


1873 


S^8 3 


228,499,000 


1874 


5,830 


I 55' 2 39'°°° 


i875 


7,744 


201,660,353 


1876 


9,092 


191,117,788 


1877 


8,672 


190,660,936 


1878 


10,478 


234.383> I 3 2 



294 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

These figures tell a fearful story of the sad 
havoc which that contraction policy made of our 
prosperity. 

Hugh McCulloch, in his treasury report, says: 
"In 1865 the people were comparatively out of 
debt." This is true. The people became involved 
in debt, not while the volume of money was being 
enlarged, but while it was being contracted and 
prices were falling. While the money was being 
destroyed credit was necessarily taking the place 
of money; and, finally, the crash came, and the 
most painful results followed. If one doubt 
remains as to what brought the disaster of 1873, 
or that those who precipitated it upon the 
country knew just what they were doing, I will 
new remove that doubt. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN SHERMAN AND OTHERS 
ON THE CONTRACTION POLICY. 

John Sherman, late Secretary of the Treasury, 
knowing the consequences that must follow, once 
opposed that contraction policy. And had he 
stood firm his name would have shone bright 
in the history of this Republic. But he 
went down before the money power; and he will 
be remembered by future generations of Ameri- 
cans as one of the hardest hearted of men. In a 
speech, delivered February 27, 1868, while 
speaking of contracting the currency (which 



AS A NATION. 295 

means, to make the volume of money smaller 
for the purpose of appreciating its value, increas- 
ing its purchasing power, or raising its price, 
whichever you see fit to call it, for these are 
all the same in effect), Mr. Sherman said: 

" The appreciation of the currency is a far more dis- 
tressing operation than Senators suppose. Our own 
and other nations have gone through that process 

before It is not possible 

to take this voyage" (meaning the contraction of 
the currency to appreciate its value) " without 
the sorest distress. To every person except a 
capitalist, out of debt, or a salaried officer or annuitant, 
it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of 
wages, suspension of enterprise, bankruptcy and disas- 
ter. ... It means the ruin of all dealers whose 
debts are twice their (business) capital, though one- 
third less than their actual property. , It means the fall 
of agricultural productions, without any great reduc- 
tion of taxes. . . . When that day comes, every 
man, as the sailor says, will be close reefed, all enter- 
prise will be suspended, every bank will have contrac- 
ted its currency to the lowest limit ; and the debtor, 
compelled to meet, in coin, a debt contracted in cur- 
rency, will find the coin hoarded in the treasury, no 
representative of coin in circulation, his property 
shrunk not only to the extent of the appreciation of 
the currency, but still more, by the artificial scarcity, 
made by the hoarders of gold. To attempt this task 
by a surprise upon our people, by arresting them in 
the midst of their lawful business, and applying a now 
standard of value to their property, without any reduc- 
tion of their debts, or giving them an opportunity to 



296 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

compound it with their creditors, or to distribute the 
losses, would be an act of folly without an example in 
evil, in modern times." 

Here we have the evidence from the highest 
authority on that subject in the Republican party, 
that an appreciation of the value of *money which 
must be brought about by a contraction of the 
currency must bring disaster upon the people. 
I said it was an old trick of the money power, 
and that it had brought disaster upon other 
countries, and here Sherman says the same 
thing: he says it cannot be done without the 
sorest distress to every person, except a capital- 
ist out of debt, a salaried officer or an annuitant. 
And please take notice that Mr. Sherman does not 
talk about extravagance or over-production as 
having any relation to a national financial disaster. 
He would have been ashamed to mention such a 
thing; for everybody there, in the Senate, knew 
better. That lie was left for the stump-speakers 
and a depraved press to tell the people in the cam- 
paign. The leaders knew what that contraction 
policy meant. It meant the fall of all agricul- 
tural productions. It meant the fall of wages. 
It meant bankruptcy and disaster. It meant 
that men should pay in coin, or its equivalent, a 
debt contracted to be paid in currency, thereby 
doubling the value of the money loaners' income, 
and doubling the people's burdens. 



AS A NATION. 297 

You have before you Sherman's prophecy, with 
regard to the effects that contraction must have 
upon the country. Was not that prophecy 
fulfilled to the very letter? Did not the people's 
property shrink in value? Was not enterprise 
suspended? Was there not bankruptcy and 
disaster? Did not sore distress come upon every 
person except the capitalist and salaried officer? 
Did not strong men seek refuge in suicide and 
noble women weep bitter tears, knowing not the 
cause of their suffering? Did not crime and 
destitution multiply through all the land? 

If any one doubts on these points, let him read 
the speech of Senator Logan, of Illinois, on the 
sad consequences of the policy of contraction. 
Surely no Republican will question the weight of 
his authority in such matters." 

His speech is reported in the appendix to the 
Congressional Record, 1874. I ask your atten- 
tion to the following extract: 

" There are many who firmly believe a return imme- 
diately to a specie basis, though oppressive for a time, 
would ultimately prove most beneficial. But I, for one, 
can see benefit only to the money holders, and those 
who receive interest, and have fixed incomes. I can 
see as a result our business operations crippled, and 
labor reduced to a mere pittance. I can see the beau- 
tiful prairies of my own state, which were beginning to 
bloom as gardens, with the cheerful homes, rising like 
white towers along the pathway of improvement, again 



298 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

sinking back to idleness. I can see the hopes of the 
industrious farmer blasted, as he burns his corn for 
fuel, because the price will not pay the cost of transpor- 
tation. I can see our people, of the West, groaning 
and burdened under taxation, to pay the debts of the 
states, counties and cities, incurred when money was 
more abundant, and bright hopes of the future were 
held out to lead them on. I can see the people of our 
western states, who are producers, reduced almost to 
the condition of serfs to pay the interest on our state, 
county and other public and private debts to the 
money lenders of the East." 

Here we have it again from authority, which 
Republicans, at least, ought not to question. 
Did Mr. Logan speak of extravagance or over- 
production as having caused the disaster of 
1873? No. He charged it to the policy of 
contraction. 

" When money was more abundant, and bright 
hopes of the future were held out to lead them 
on, the beautiful prairies " of his own state 
u were beginning to bloom as gardens, with 
cheerful homes; 1 ' but, under that contraction 
policy, they sank " back to idleness," and "the 
hopes of the industrious farmer " were -'blasted; " 
the}' " burned their corn for fuel, because the 
price would not pay the cost of transportation/' 

Have the old party papers been telling the 
people these things. No they have kept them 
concealed as much as possible. 



AS A NATION. 



2 99 



Let us hear from another distinguished Repub- 
lican on this subject. Senator Ferry, of Michigan, 
in a speech delivered in May, 1878, said: 

"I confess, Mr. President, that, as an early advocate 
of the receivability of United States notes for duties 
and against contraction and forced resumption, as the 
safest and speediest method of arriving at resumption, 
rather than by naming a day when specie payments 
should be enforced, I reluctantly joined in the compro- 
mise measure of 1875 " (meaning the resumption act), 
"which I feared would entail, upon the business and 
toiling community, incalculable woe. The universal 
distress and unparalleled failures which have followed 
those past years of trial, must sadly record the severity 
of the process which has brought the country so near 
resumption, and so close to financial ruin." 

Mr. Ferry says not one word about extrava- 
gance or over-production; but he does say he 
opposed contraction, fearing it " would entail 
upon the business and toiling community incalcu- 
lable woe.' 1 And this he follows with the state- 
ment that " The universal distress and unparal- 
leled failues" which did follow that policy, sadly 
records the severity of the process which brought 
this country " so close to financial ruin." 

In other words, he said it was the contraction 
of the currency that so nearly ruined this country. 
Fie had feared it would entail upon the toiling 
community incalculable woe. Did it not do it ? 
Millions of people were reduced from good 



300 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

circumstances to penury, or covered with debt, 
beneath which burden their backs must bend, 
until it is unloaded at the grave, where an inno- 
cent posterity must take it up and bear it on. 

Thus Senator Ferry's fears have been real- 
ized, and thus incalculable woe has been entailed 
upon coming generations. 

The testimony of the three distinguished 
Republicans, whom I have just quoted, taken 
together, establish three propositions, viz: 

First, That the leaders knew what the result 
of the contraction policy would be. 

Second, That they did pursue that policy. 

Third, That the most disastrous results did 
follow. 

If the reader still doubts, I will call his atten* 
tion to the fact that on the 15th of August, 1876^ 
a joint resolution became a law, creating what 
was called a Monetary Commission, consisting 
of three United States senators and three mem- 
bers of the House, and three secretaries, whose 
duty it was to inquire " into the change which 
had taken place in the relative value of gold and 
silver; the causes thereof, whether permanent or 
otherwise; the effects thereof upon trade, com- 
merce and the productive interests of the - 
country." 

The commission consisted of the following 
persons: John P. Jones, Lewis V. Bogy and 



AS A NATION. 30I 

George S. Boutwell, ' of the Senate Messrs. 
Randall, L. Gibson, George Willard and Richard 
P. Bland, of the House of Representatives. 

Wm. S. Grosbeck, of Ohio; Prof. Francis 
Bowen, of Massachusetts; George M. Weston^ 
of Maine, were appointed secretaries. 

The committee had other duties assigned them, 
such as an inquiry into the best means of facili- 
tating specie payment, etc. But those duties 
need not be mentioned here. 

The question, " What brought the disaster of 
1873 and years of dreadful suffering to this 
people? 1 ' was thoroughly examined and squarely 
decided by them. They held meetings in New 
York and Washington, had an extensive corres- 
pondence, and took much testimony bearing 
upon the subject, and on the 2d day of March, 
1877, they rendered a report in which precisely 
these words appear: 

" The true and only cause of the stagnation in 
industry and commerce now everywhere felt, is the fact 
everywhere existing of falling prices, caused by a 
shrinkage in the volume of money." 

Here is no intimation that extravagance or 
over-production had anything whatever to do 
with causing the disaster of 1873. But, with all 
the light which an exhaustive examination could 
throw upon the subject, the committee declare 



302 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

emphatically that the " true and only cause " of 
that disaster and distress was the " shrinkage in 
the volume of money." 

And not only did that committee decide that 
the contraction of the currency caused the dis- 
aster, but the terrible results which followed that 
policy then, as well as at other periods in the 
world's history, is fitly expressed by them in vol. 
i, page 10, of same report. The following are 
the words of the committee: 

"An increasing value of money and falling prices 
have been, and are, more fruitful of misery than war, 
pestilence and famine. 

Certainly that is what a shrinkage in the volume 
of currency means. It means an increase in the 
value of money, or, what amounts to the same 
thing to the producer, a fall in the price of his 
produce, which is sure to bring suffering upon 
the working classes. 

Those who have studied the subject of finance, 
and who are familiar with financial legislation 
and its effect upon liberty and the world's indus- 
tries, know that there is no record of a financial 
disaster that was not caused directly or indirectly 
by the villainous management of the finances 
by the money power, nor one in which that power 
did not reap a harvest from the injured people. 
Such will wonder that I offer more evidence to 



AS A NATION. 303 

prove that the suffering of 1873, and following 
years, was caused by a contraction of the cur- 
rency, when that which I have produced is so 
overwhelming : but I know how deeply rooted the 
belief is, in the public mind, that financial disaster 
is the fault of the people; that they plunge into 
debt; and, when pay-day comes, then come hard 
times. The people do not stop to think that 
getting into debt would not affect prices, which 
always begin to fall before hard times come on. 

The testimony of our Paris commission will 
fitly close the evidence on this point of contrac- 
•tion and disaster. It will be remembered that 
President Hayes sent a commission to Paris to 
meet the representatives of other governments, 
in the hope that, through them, other countries 
might be induced to adopt the double standard 
— that is, to use both gold and silver for a specie 
basis, instead of gold only, as many countries are 
now doing. 

Our commission consisted of the following 
gentlemen. Win. Evarts, of New York (late Sec- 
retary of State) ; Senator Thurman, of Ohio, and 
Timothy O. Howe, of Wisconsin. They met in 
council at Paris, and, in the presence of those 
distinguished representatives of the monied inter- 
ests of Europe, Mr. Howe made a speech, which 
was reported in the Republican and News y a 
journal published at Milwaukee, Wis. The 



304 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

number referred to bears date June 14, 1881. 
From that report of Mr. Howe's speech I clip 
the following: 

" Since the war closed in 1865, our annual taxes 
have defrayed our annual expenditures, and' have be- 
sides, paid off over eight hundred millions of dollars of 
the national debt, and during ail that time prices have 
been subjected to that remorseless compression which 
results from a steady contraction of the circulation. 
No man has bought who did not know he would sell to 
a shrunken market. No man has planted who did not 
know that the standard which measures the cost of his 
seed, and his labor would by no means be accepted to 
measure the value of his crop." 

The last witness here introduced,. Mr. Howe, 
has given his testimony thirteen years after the 
policy of contraction was inaugurated, and he 
says not one word about the American people 
having suffered from the effects of extravagance 
or over-production. But with all those years of 
experience behind him, and all their history 
before him, he declares in effect that his country- 
men have suffered from a fall of prices, caused b} T 
that remorseless policy of contraction. 

Now, fellow-citizen, I have produced the testi- 
mony of three distinguished Republican senators, 
a committee composed of prominent members 
of both the House and Senate, and lastly the 
commission sent to Paris, by President Hayes, 



AS A NATION. 305 

to substantiate my proposition, viz: That the 
contraction of the currency caused the fall of 
prices and consequent hard times from 1873 to 
1880. Now, doubt if }'ou can! 

But you ask why have not our leading Demo- 
cratic and Republican journals been making us 
acquainted with these important facts. Why 
have their orators not been thundering these awful 
truths from every platform in the land. How 
could they knowing the cause themselves, see us 
suffer as we have suffered, and not publish it in 
every school-house and from every street corner ? 
Have I not told you, from the beginning, that 
they were engaged in misleading you? They 
have been screaming " Solid South " to divert 
your attention, lest you discover the cause of 
your suffering and hurl them from power. 
Here I ought to say that many have tried to 
defend you for a while, but the money power 
combined against them, and you were reading 
a press which made you so party-blind that you 
would not strengthen the arm of your friends, 
while most of them were neither great nor good 
enough to withstand the power which capital 
could bring to bear against them. Then, too, your 
willingness to follow the lead of capital and your 
apparent disregard of your own interest, have dis- 
couraged many a man who would have defended 
you, but who has now lost all confidence in your 



306 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

intelligence and good intentions, and become the 
most adroit among your enemies. 

THE PEOPLE HANDING THEIR PROPERTY OVER 
TO THE OPPRESSOR. 

The enormity of the contraction policy will 
be better understood by tracing the effects 
directly to the people individually. To illus- 
trate: A farmer purchased a quantity of land 
in 1864 or 5, before the volume of money had 
been shrunken. He paid one thousand dollars 
down, and gave a note and mortgage for the 
other thousand, to be paid in 1878. Now, it is 
admitted by the highest Republican authority, 
that the "true and only cause of the fall of 
prices was due to a shrinkage in the volume of 
mone} 7 ." Now, if we can determine how much 
the price of farm produce fell, we can determine 
how much that farmer was affected by the con- 
traction of the currency and the consequent 
increase in the value of money. I trust the 
Agricultural Department at Washington will be 
considened good authoritv. There all the figures 
are gathered and published under authority of 
law. And, in Agricultural Reports for 1878, 
page 290, I find the following: 

"The average price obtained by the farmer has 
fallen off two-thirds in fifteen years. Corn being 



AS A NATION. 307 

97 7-10 per bushel in 1864 and 37 5-10 in 1878. The 
last named crop, though greater by forty-six millions 
of bushels, than its predecessors, fell short of it thirty 
million dollars in aggregate value. The average value 
of each acre's yield has fallen to the unprecedentedly 
low figure of $8.55 in 1878— in 1864 it amounted to 
$30.64." 

Remember, these figures are taken from the 
Department of Agriculture at Washington, 
where they appear in Republican handwriting. 
We will say the farmer has paid one thousand 
and still owes one thousand, to be paid at the 
expiration of ten years. Now, if he succeeds in 
paying the balance when due, how has he been 
affected by the fall of prices? Why, when the 
other thousand is paid, his land will sell for only 
half as many dollars as he paid for it. What 
has become of the first thousand dollar payment? 
He worked hard for the money and paid it to 
the mortgagee, but it is not represented in his 
land; he cannot sell the land and get it back; if 
he sells he certainly cannot get more than the 
last thousand back, because the price of land has 
also fallen not less than one-half. Has not the 
first thousand dollars payment been shrunken 
out of it; is it not a dead loss to the farmer? 
Here Shylock answers " no; the farmer can sell 
his farm for enough money to purchase another 
just as good, hence we do not see that he has 



308 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

lost anything/' I admit that the land will sell for 
enough money to buy the same quantity back 
again, because the same policy that shrunk the 
value of his farm has effected other farms in the 
same way, but that does not get back the first 
thousand dollars, which he paid before prices 
fell. He has paid two thousand dollars, but his 
farm will sell for only one thousand. Now, did 
not Shylock's contraction policy wrong the 
farmer out of one-half his property? It will be 
remembered that Senator Howe said that prices 
had been subjected to that remorseless compres- 
sion which results from a steady contraction of 
the circulation. He uses the word remorseless, 
which Webster defines to mean no compassion, 
— insensible to distress. I have already shown 
results cruel enough to justify the use of that 
word, and if you will follow me deeper into the 
subject, I will satisfy you that no word in the 
English language is too strong to convey an ade- 
quate idea of the injustice and cruelty of that 
policy. I have not told half the sad story. We 
will now suppose the farmer not to have paid 
the last thousand dollars, but since he made the 
first payment, the price of his corn, pork, beef 
wheat and all the products of his labor has been 
lowered two-thirds. He must now toil three 
times as many days to pay the other thousand 
dollars, because it will require three times as 



AS A NATION. 309 

much of the produce of his farm to get the 
thousand dollars, hence you see the contraction 
policy has not only sunk that which he has paid, 
but it has in effect trebled his indebtedness; it 
has made the debt three times as hard to pay. 
It has, in effect, changed his contract from one 
to three thousand dollars ; it compels him to pay 
in coin, or its equivalent, that which was con- 
tracted to be paid in currency. It was contracted 
to be paid in cheap money; it must be paid in 
dear money. 

Farmers, can you not now see why you could 
not get out of debt? Your debts were being 
trebled by the money power. That shrinkage 
policy was cruel, beyond the power of language 
to describe, and the means used by the capitalists to 
keep the people ignorant of what was being done 
were base and devilish. The people were deluded 
into the belief that everything was working well. 
They did not know that a policy was being pur- 
sued by the government that must lower the 
price of everything except money. 

The thrifty housewife said to her husband: 
" Husband, wheat is bringing a good price, and 
butter and eggs are bringing a good price, and 
our daughter has been faithful, she has worked 
hard at home and learned well at school, she has 
always been considerate, and never asked us for 
anything expensive. I know she would like 



3IO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

an organ so much. You and I are getting 
well along in years; we have always worked 
hard and had very few of the luxuries of life, and 
a little music would be so sweet of an evening, 
after we have toiled through the long day. All 
we owe in the world is that grocer's bill of 
fifty dollars, and, husband, I have been thinking 
that, if you are agreed, we will surprise our 
daughter with an organ for a Christmas present; 
we can get it on time, and if you think you can 
pay for the organ, I will get along without the 
dress and carpet I was intending to buy, and I 
will pay that fifty-dollar grocer's bill with butter 
and eggs." 

Very well: The husband does not know what 
is taking place with the currency, and the organ 
is purchased, and if prices were to remain the 
same there would be no risk; and prices would 
remain the same, or nearly so, if the volume of 
money was permitted to remain undisturbed. 

But, without consulting the people, as to 
whether they will have the currency contracted 
and their prices sent down, and without their 
knowledge, even, "A gang of miserable stock- 
jobbers, with no more conscience than pirates, 
inspired solely by a greed for gain," contract the 
currency and send prices down two-thirds. 

The old lady, honest and innocent, toils all 
summer, in joyous anticipation of being able to 






AS A NATION. 3II 

pay the debt, saves every egg and uses butter 
sparingly. She sees by the market report that 
the price of butter and eggs is falling; she 
knows not the cause, and in the editorial columns 
she finds a promise that they will soon be going 
up again; she takes courage and continues to 
save eggs and pack butter, but still the prices 
continue to fall until her butter, which she had 
been selling for thirty cents per pound will bring 
only ten, and she can pay only one-third of the 
debt. In the meantime, wheat and all the pro- 
ducts of labor have fallen in the same raj:io, and 
the old man finds himself unable to pay for the 
organ. Notes must be given drawing ten per 
cent interest; they struggle a few years still prices 
are low and the debt grows larger and larger, 
until the farm stock is mortgaged to secure the 
debt, and by and by the little farm is obliged 
to be mortgaged to save the stock, and the final 
result is the honest old couple loose their home 
and the closing years of an industrious and 
frugal life are made miserable by the contraction 
policy and waiting creditors. Then the depraved 
tools of the money power, add insult to 
injury, by coolly telling the old man that he has 
been extravagant; that he had no business to 
have bought the organ; that he would have 
been just as well off without it, and it was good 
enough for him if he didn't know better than to 



312 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

go into debt, and that the fall in prices was due 
to over-production, and. that he must work 
harder and be more economical and he would 
soon be all right again; and finally they 
impress upon the old man the necessity of voting 
the republican ticket, else the rebel war debt will 
be paid, which will add greatly to his burdens. 
Are the terms, "base and devilish " too strong to 
describe the treatment which the toiling people 
received at the hands of the money power during 
those dreadful years. Is the word remorseless 
too strong a word to apply to that contraction 
policy? There is scarcely a neighborhood in the 
West which cannot relate an experience like the 
following : John Doe, the farmer, was flourishing 
when the volume of money was large in 1864-6. 
(and, by the way, it was the first time in the 
history of the country that the volume of money 
has been large enough for the laboring people 
to be really prosperous) ; he had his farm paid 
for, but was without wood; he took the risk of 
purchasing forty acres of woodland; he gave 
notes and mortgage, and could have paid it 
easily, but prices went down; he could not fulfill 
his contract and finally, after making several 
payments, he was forced to mortgage his home- 
stead; still prices were falling, and continued to 
fall, until the land would not sell for enough to 
pay the balance due, and still the interest accu- 



AS A NATION. 313 

mulated, until the whole property was sold under 
the mortgage, and the poor discouraged family 
turned out of doors. With what remained of 
their effects, loaded into one wagon drawn by a 
span of mules, they started for the frontier, 
leaving the earnings of half a century behind 
them. I am creditably informed, that in Grant 
county, Wisconsin, one money loaner took to 
himself sixty-eight farms in one year, as the 
result of the contraction policy. The farmers 
were flourishing, for the first time. Up to that 
period, money had been the one thing hard to get ; 
then it was easy. They saw an opportunity to 
purchase land for their sons and for other pur- 
poses. Nor did they consider that they were 
running a risk, and probably not one in five hun- 
dred of the farmers who were ruined during the 
hard times, had ventured beyond the line of 
sound business prudence. But the value of 
money was increased and made hard to get; 
prices were sent down, and disaster followed, 
from which the next century will not see the 
county recover. Now, did the money loaners 
loose anything themselves by bringing that dis- 
aster upon the people? No; their bonds and 
mortgages called for just as many dollars as they 
did before prices fell. Did the farm and its pro- 
ducts call for as many dollars? Oh, no; only 
about one-third. Farmers and toilers, do vou 



514 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

not see the gold bugs shrunk your property, but 
did not shrink their own? 

But you ask, " why did the gold bugs shrink 
the value of our property,' 1 unless they gained 
by it ? 

Now, you ask the question that strikes to the 
very root of this whole matter of contracting the 
currency. They did gain by it. All the people 
lost, by the shrinkage of values, the gold-bugs 
gained, because it raised the relative value o£ 
money, and monied obligations, to commodities. 
The gold-bugs' mortgages and bonds not only 
called for as many dollars, but every dollar called 
for three times as much of the people's property 
as they did before the fall of prices, that is, 
it would require three times as much, of the 
products, of labor to pay the bond or mortgage 
after the fall of prices, as it would have required 
before prices fell. They lowered the value of 
the people's property two-thirds, which, of course, 
added that much to the value of their bonds. 

Now, do }'ou not see what interest the bond- 
holder had in shrinking values? The Congress- 
man's salary of five thousand dollars became as 
valuable to him as fifteen thousand dollars was 
before prices fell; because it would purchase 
three times as much of other property; but it 
would cost the people three times as much labor 
to pay that salary. In other words, by shrinking 



AS A NATION. 315 

values the Congressman added ten thousand 
dollars to his salary. He trebled his income and 
trebled the people's burdens. 

You will remember our Congressmen once 
passed a law doubling their salaries, and the 
people would not stand it; they could see how 
that was done. But the Congressman thought 
of a plan by which he could accomplish his pur- 
pose and the people not find it out: He could 
shrink the volume of money enough to treble its 
purchasing power, and thus double his salary 
once and one-half. 

Do you now see why the Congressman was 
interested in shrinking values? It trebled the 
value of the salary of every government officer, 
and every state officer, and every county officer. 
Do you see how it was that the office-holding fra- 
ternity were in favor of increasing the purchasing 
power of money? It multiplied their salary by 
three and the people's burdens by the same 
number. 

The leading newspapers did not lower their 
subscription price, so the increase in the purchas- 
ing power of money trebled the value of their 
income from their papers. Then, most of the 
editors of those leading papers are rich, and own 
bonds and mortgages, and the value of those 
obligations was greatly enhanced by the contrac- 
tion policy. Hence, it is not difficult to under- 



-2 10 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

stand why those editors are so busily engaged in 
misleading the people on the money question. 

The railroads were very deeply interested. 
Why should they not be. Their four cents per 
mile became as good as twelve cents had been 
before the fall of prices. But it cost the people 
three times as much labor to get the four cents to 
ride the mile. The shrinkage of values trebled the 
.value of the money received by the railroads, and, 
of course, they favored the contraction policy. 

The insurance companies favored the contrac- 
tion policy, because it trebled the value of their 
income. The five dollars per month,which some 
farmers were paying for insurance on their build- 
ings, became as valuable to the insurance com- 
pany as $15 had been before the fall of prices. 
But it cost the farmer three times as much of his 
farm produce to get the $5 to pay it. It is not 
difficult to understand why the insurance compa- 
nies were in favor of shrinking values. 

At the close of a speech I was delivering in 
Wisconsin, in 1879, a small-sized politician came 
forward from the audience and said to me : 

"Mr. Willey, I have a Norwegian friend, who 
is a pork raiser. He had a thousand-dollar 
mortgage on his farm; he was paying ten per 
cent, interest. I told him I thought I knew where 
I could raise the money for him, at seven per cent. 
He thought it most too good to believe; but I 



AS A NATION. 317 

succeeded, and he now says he does not want to 
hear another word on the currency question, for 
interest is going down, and he is satisfied." 

I asked the politican how much of the Nor- 
wegians pork it would require at the time he 
hired the money to pay the interest on one dollar 
for one year — ten cents. 

The politicians looks showed me at once, that 
he could see that such questions would destroy 
his argument; but he had advanced too far to 
retreat, and he answered, "Well, about one 
pound of pork would have paid the ten cents at 
that time." I then asked how much pork would 
be required to pay the seven per cent " at the 
time we were talking (1879). " Well," said 
he, " some over two pounds." I then said to 
him, the change which has taken place in the 
relative situation of your Norwegian friend to 
the money loaner may be illustrated as follows: 
At the time he borrowed the money, interest 
was ten per cent and pork was worth ten cents 
per pound. One thousand pounds of pork would 
then pay the annual interest on one thousand 
dollars. And ten thousand pounds of pork 
would have paid the principle. Now, interest 
has fallen to seven per cent, while pork has fallen 
to three cents per pound. It will now require 
more than two thousand pounds of pork to pay 
his annual interest and more than twenty thous- 



3 1 8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

and pounds of pork to pay the principle. Now, 
said I, hurry and tell your poor deluded Norwe- 
gian friend, that the money power has more than 
doubled his debt and interest. When the debt 
paying power of his pork is considered his bur- 
den is doubled, and the interest and principle 
which the money loaner is to receive, is more 
than twice as valuable to him as it was before 
the shrinkage in values took place. What the 
Norwegian has lost, the money loaner has gained. 
The Norwegian should be made to understand 
that he is dealing in one kind of property, and the 
money loaner in another. The Norwegian is 
purchasing money with his pork, while his pork 
is being purchased with money. 

This principle the people should consider in 
relation to the public debt: The interest on 
the government bonds, at 3 1-2 and 4 per cent, 
is more valuable to the receiver, and costs the 
people more labor to pay it than it did to pay 6 per 
cent in 1864. Since 1864 the people have paid, 
in principle and interest on the public debt, more 
than two billions of dollars, or more than two 
dollars for every minute that has elapsed since 
Jesus Christ walked the earth 1881 years ago. 
Yet, when the debt paying power of the pro- 
ducts of labor is considered, that debt hangs 
more than one-third heavier about the neck of 
this nation than it did at the close of the war. 



AS A NATION. 319 

Let every farmer remember that, although 
his state, county and township tax-bills call for 
a less number of dollars, yet, it costs him much 
more labor to pay them than it did in 1866, 
and let him not forget that the office-holders are 
receiving that much more value. 

Fellow citizens, the excuse, for the legislation 
which brought such dreadful suffering upon this 
people, was that it was necessary, in order to 
reach a sound basis for money. A blacker lie 
was never uttered, even by a Shylock, and I 
shall prove it to you in my next lecture. 

In the early part of this lecture, I promised 
you that, if you would follow me through the 
arguments, I would compel you to believe that 
contraction of the currency, and not extrava- 
gance and over-production, brought the terrible 
disaster of 1873. Trusting that you will feel 
that I have kept my promise, and also that you 
will see clearly that the press and demagogues 
have labored unceasingly to deceive the people in 
regard to the cause of their suffering, I will 
close the present lecture with the following brief 
summary, which I know honest history will 
warrant me in making. The contraction policy 
is the cruel machinery which despots use to take 
the people's property from them and destroy 
their liberties. There was no excuse lor it. 
The people never demanded it at any time nor 



320 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

in any country, and never would have permitted 
it, had they been educated to know their own 
interests. It always originated with the monied 
class, and those who receive interest and have 
fixed incomes; it has ruined the laboring popula- 
tion of Europe; it has crossed the sea, and now 
bears the torch of death through the fair fields 
of our own America. 



AS A NATION. 32 1 



LECTURE X. 

RESUMPTION AND SPECIE PAYMENT. 

RESUMPTION AND SPECIE PAYMENT— CAN THE NATIONAL BANKS 
REDEEM THEIR NOTES— WILL THE GOVERNMENT REDEEM THE 
GREENBACKS IN THE HANDS OP THE PEOPLE — THE NATIONAL 
BANKING SYSTEM— HIGH BONDS— THE POWER OP BONDS TO ROB 
THE PEOPLE— THE WAY THE PEOPLE PAY THE INTEREST ON 
BONDS. 

There is not another three words in the 
English language half so potent, in the mouth of 
despots, to enslave the people as the words 
resumption and specie payment. By those 
words the people, time and again, have been 
charmed into giving np their homes and the 
hard earnings of a lifetime; and they have been 
successfully used to cover up nearly all the devil- 
try in monetary transactions for centuries. The 
contraction of the currency in England, which 
ruined the great mass of Englishmen, was accom- 
plished under the false plea, that they were going 
to resume specie payment and redeem the peo- 
ple's money in coin. But, mark you, that was a 
pretext only: a small volume of money and low 
prices was the real object; for well the inventors 



322 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of the devilish scheme knew, that to redeem the 
paper money in circulation in Great Britain with 
specie, was an utter impossibility. What our 
Shyiocks did, with regard to contraction and a 
pretended specie basis, they did with the history 
of other nations before them. They knew that 
it had made paupers of the masses, and given 
the governing power entirely to the rich in other 
countries, and they had no right to expect other 
results to follow the same policy here: indeed 
they wanted no other results, nor did they expect 
other results; for well they knew that even the 
boasted bank of England was and is a machine 
to rob the people — to perpetuate the reign of an 
aristocracy, which has wrenched the land from 
the yeomanry of Great Britain, through a con- 
traction of the currency. Well they knew that 
as often as the English people had asked to have 
their money redeemed, they had been dis- 
appointed, and a panic was the result. In the 
speech made by General Logan, from which I 
have before quoted, he said that there had been 
a panic with the bank of England and a suspen- 
sion of specie pa}mients as follows: "1788, 1793, 
1810, 1819, 1826, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1862." 
And I find his statement to be historically 
correct. Here was suspension about once in 
seven years, with a heavy loss to the people. 
For when a banking corporation cannot meet its 



AS A NATION. 323 

obligations, then its notes are at a discount and 
those who hold them must suffer loss. To illus- 
trate : a man has worked one month and has 
received for his pay a twenty dollar note, issued 
by the bank of England. But there has been a 
run on the bank; it has suspended specie pay- 
ment, and its notes are at a discount of, say, 20 
per cent. When the laborer comes to purchase 
the necessari^ of life, and presents his bank 
of England note for payment, the merchant will 
receive it only at a discount of 20 per cent, con- 
sequently he suffers a loss of 20 cents on every 
dollar, or one-fifth of his month's work, simply 
because he is obliged to use money issued by a 
banking corporation. That is the way the 
people are robbed of their hard earnings, every 
few years, by the specie basis system of Great 
Britain. But the banker loses nothing. His 
notes are at a discount in the hands of the people, 
and the people must lose it. What results have 
followed the specie basis system, in England, cal- 
culated to stimulate an honest desire, in the mind 
of an American, to see it adopted here? None, 
whatever. And what could they find in the records 
of the specie payment system, in America, that 
would justify a return to it, after ten years of 
unparalleled prosperity without it? 

They never would have been permitted to 
return to it, had the people known just what was 



324 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

being done. The repeated failures of the old 
state banks, and their long-continued robbery of 
the industrial classes, had disgusted the people 
with the specie basis business, as carried on under 
the old banking system. 

The necessities of the war had given birth to 
the greenback, and the people felt secure for the 
first time. The volume of money was enlarged, 
and although a share of the people's earnings 
was finding its way into the pockets of the 
gold gamblers of Wall street (as I have already 
shown), the country prospered as it never pros- 
pered before. In fact, the people were growing 
out of the old system ; they could see its deform- 
ities, as they could not be made to see them when 
they were in the midst of it. They were just 
gaining an eminence, where they could look down 
upon the broken fragments of fortunes gained by 
the sturdy strokes of heroic toil, only to be sacri- 
ficed at the feet of that golden god called "specie 
payment," and dread the results of such a policy. 
And a hint at a return of the old wild-cat system 
would have met a very decided opposition from 
the people, and the gold bugs knew it. 

CAN THE NATIONAL BANKS REDEEM THEIR 
NOTES. 

But there must be some excuse for making the 
volume of money small, and for bringing prices 



AS A NATION. 325 

down; so they began to tickle the ears of the 
people with the silly lie that the government was 
going to resume specie payment. 

Now, Fellow-citizens, there is not a dime 
novel in the country that does not contain more 
sound sense, in a single page, than is contained 
in that whole resumption story, as told by Shy- 
lock. Let us examine the subject briefly: 

First, It is claimed that the national bank 
currency is redeemable in greenbacks. Well, 
that is the law, and that is the theory : but, prac- 
tically, it is false. It is false for the very good 
reason that they have not got the funds to 
redeem with. The highest amount, which the 
law compels the national bank to hold for 
redemption purposes, is five per cent, of the 
amount of their circulation. Now, it needs no ar- 
gument to prove that one hundred dollars can not 
be redeemed with five. That is a smaller basis 
than the old wild-cat banks were compelled to 
maintain, and every time the people wanted their 
money redeemed, under that system, the banks 
broke down, and the people's hard-earned money 
became worthless in their hands. So no sane 
man will claim that experience justifies faith in 
the solvency of a corporation winch, if called 
upon, could pay only rive per cent, of its liabilities, 
any more than an individual would be considered 
solvent, whose actual property would pay only 



326 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

five per cent, of his debts. So, if the national 
banks were called upon to redeem their notes, now 
in the hands of the people, they could not do it. 

But, say you, the government guarantees the 
redemption of the national bank currency. Very 
well. I am not now talking about redemption 
by the government, I am talking about redemp- 
tion by the banks. 

The very fact that the government stands 
behind them, proves that the banks themselves 
are not certain to redeem their currency. 
The government guarantees the payment of 
the national bank notes, and that is all that 
distinguishes the national banking system 
from the old wild-cat system. It is off the same 
piece : for the national banks are doing business 
on credit; for they have in circulation, at least, 
twenty dollars, for every one dollar in specie or 
greenbacks, held in reserve for redemption. 
They are loaning their promise to pay, which 
they cannot fulfill. In and of themselves, they 
are in a perpetual state of insolvency. 

Having clearly shown that the national banks, 
if called upon to redeem their notes, could not do 
it, I now propose to show that it is not easy to 
call upon them to redeem their notes. 

One national bank is under no obligation to 
redeem money issued by another national bank; 
and this is a very important fact,which you should 



AS A NATION. 327 

consider, in relation to the resumption business. 

When in Kansas recently this point was 
under discussion, and several of us examined 
seven hundred dollars of national bank currency, 
and in that amount we found only three bills 
issued in that state, the balance being issued in 
other states, and most of it east of Michigan. 
If we examine our national bank notes we 
shall find about the following state of things 
existing: Here is a five dollar note, issued in 
Boston. Well, if the owner happen to reside in 
Oregon it will be rather expensive getting that 
redeemed. Here is a two dollar note, issued in 
Nebraska. Should the owner happen to reside 
in Vermont, what chance has he to get his two 
dollar note redeemed. Here is a ten dollar note, 
issued in Maine, but should the owner be a citizen 
of Minnesota, how is he to get his note redeemed, 
and what will it cost him? 

Here you see, to the impossibility of redeem- 
ing the national bank notes, for want of funds, is 
added the farther impossibility of presenting 
them for redemption, owing to the great dis- 
tance, which most of the holders, of those notes, 
are from the banks that issued them. 

Need I pursue the argument further to prove 
that all this talk, about the redeemability of 
national bank notes, by the banks, is a lie and a 
cheat. Whatever there is of certainty in the 



328 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

redemption of national bank currency lies with 
the government, and not with the banks. 

WILE THE GOVERNMENT REDEEM THE GREEN- 
BACKS IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE? 

I will leave the national bank currency for the 
present, and see how it is with the greenbacks. 
Shylock has made the people, or a portion of 
them, believe that they can get their green- 
backs redeemed in coin. But Shylock knows it 
is a lie; he has only got it fixed so he can pocket 
what coin there is in the treasury, whenever he 
finds it to his interest to do so. Now let us see 
if this is true: 

If you have ten dollars in greenbacks, can you 
get it redeemed by virtue of the resumption law? 
No. If you have twenty, can you? No. If 
you have thirty, can you? No. If you have 
forty, can you? No. If you have forty -nine, 
can you? No. You must have fifty dollars; 
for it is not redeemable in smaller amounts. 
And, then, where must you present it for 
redemption? Why, at the sub-treasury in New 
York; for it is redeemable nowhere else. 

Now, what proportion of the American people 
have, or could have, fifty dollars that they could 
get redeemed at the sub-treasury in New York, 
should they desire to do so? 

Is it not safe to say that the resumption law 



AS A NATION. 329 

lias placed the coin in the treasury beyond the 
reach of more than two-thirds of the American 
people, from the simple fact that the smallest 
amount redeemable is larger than the masses 
can command, and also that the distance and 
expense of reaching the place of redemption puts 
whatever advantage there is in resumption 
beyond the reach of the laboring people. Then, 
how much coin is there in the treasury available 
for resumption purposes ? The secretary's report 
shows that the whole amount of specie held in 
the treasury for resumption purposes is only 
about 40 per cent of the whole amount of green- 
backs in circulation. 

By the way, Shylock has a very cunning way 
of stating that proposition. He tells the people 
that the national bank currency is redeemable in 
greenbacks, and the greenbacks redeemable in 
coin. And in that way he makes them think 
they see coin behind the paper money. 

But does that change the fact that all the coin 
there is behind the paper money amounts to only 
forty per cent, of the greenback currency, which 
would make a basis of less than twenty per cent, 
of the whole paper circulation? Is it not true 
that one hundred and fifty millions of dollars in 
specie, is the size of Shylock's specie basis for 
about seven hundred and fifty millions of paper 
money ? 



330 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

What means all this talk about the national 
bank currency being redeemable in greenbacks, 
and the greenbacks redeemable in coin? Sup- 
posing it is the law, it cannot be done. As well 
make a law to dip the ocean dry with a pint cup. 
If a man stop to look once, he will see through 
the trick, and through their pretended specie 
basis, to the lie behind it, which has been con- 
cocted by Shylock to delude the people into the 
belief that they can get their paper money 
redeemed in specie. 

Who can not understand that the government 
can no more redeem one dollar with twenty 
cents, than the old wild-cat banks could do it? 

Here the money power steps in, and says : 

" Why, the paper money is scattered all over 
the country, and the people are not going to 
gather it all up, and present it for redemption all 
at once, and drain the treasury." 

This reminds me of a story, which the specie 
basis men are telling, and which, they say, illus- 
trates the relation of the people to specie pay- 
ment by the government. When I tell them that 
neither the banks nor the government could 
redeem if called upon, they say. 

" Well, the people don't want their money 
redeemed : they are like the Dutchman, who had 
money deposited in the bank, and it was rumored 
that the bank was likely to break down. So the 



AS A nation; 331 

Dutchman hurried away to the bank, and 
demanded his money. Immediately the cashier 
began to count it out to him. 

" ' Oh ! ' said the Dutchman, ' you have got it, 
have you ? Well, if you have got it, all right ; 
then I don't want it.' " 

This is a pleasant little story to tell. But, 
unfortunately for Shylock, it does not fit the 
case. 

The moral they would inculcate, is that the 
people, knowing that the specie is in the treas- 
ury for them, don't want it. 

Now, this is not true. The Dutchman's case 
is not parallel with that of the people at all : he 
went to the bank, and found money covering the 
full face of his demand; but, should the people 
go to the government and demand specie for 
their paper money, the most they could get 
would be about twenty cents on the dollar. Had 
the bank cashier said to the Dutchman, " Here 
is your money, sir, if you don't want it; but, if 
you do want it, you can't have it, because it is 
not here," then his relation to the bank would 
have been precisely that of the people to the 
government. Hence, you see, the moment Shy- 
lock's story is put to the test the bottom falls out. 

How well the Shylocks know that all their 
pretences about the government redeeming 
the people's money in specie are delusive? 



332 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

When do the people want their money 
redeemed? When there is a scare, of course. 
While everything is running smoothly, and 
paper money at par with gold, nobody wants it 
redeemed. It is when there is danger of war, or 
a crisis, that paper money will depreciate, be- 
cause it is not a legal tender for debt — then 
people will want it redeemed in specie. And, 
when one wants it, all want it, for the same 
reason. Then there is a rush for the banks, and 
those who get there first get a little specie; but 
at least three-fourths get there only to find 
the small reserve of coin taken, and nothing left 
for them. 

Now, how much specie resumption do you see 
in our present monetary system ? Is it not the 
same old story, told in a different way, to make 
it more attractive to those who never look for 
the soul of things, until driven to it, by the stern 
logic of extreme necessity? Our people will soon 
be driven to it by necessity. 

And let us see just where we stand with refer- 
ence to our finances, in case of a crisis, should 
the balance of trade turn against us, which bids 
fair to be the case, at no distant day? It is 
always changeable — sometimes in our favor 
— sometimes against us. 

For a few years it has been in our favor, which 
is almost entirely due to the failure of crops in 



AS A NATION. 333 

foreign countries. The scarcity of provisions 
there forced them to buy provisions of- us, and 
that brought gold into our country, enlarging the 
volume of money here, and sending our prices up. 

Now, as Europe reaps a good harvest, the 
balance of trade turns. Then we purchase more 
of them than they do of us, and gold flows back 
to Europe again; coin becomes scarce; the 
holders of our bonds in foreign countries demand 
the coin of us; the demand for coin increases; 
the government must buy it to pay bonds and 
interest on bonds; the receipts from imports are 
not sufficient to meet the unusual demand; 
importers must have it to pay their duties; the 
gold gamblers corner it, and compel the govern- 
ment and importers to pay one dollar and 
twenty-five cents in greenbacks and national 
bank currency for one dollar in gold. 

Now, the coin is in Europe, Wall street and 
the treasur}^. The paper money is in the hands 
of the people, and worth seventy-five cents on the 
dollar. And, in that state of things, what are 
they to do? 

"Well, get it redeemed; convert it into coin, 
under the resumption act." 

Ah! they will, will they? Remember, the 
smallest amount redeemable is fifty dollars, and 
more than two-thirds of the people haven't that 
amount of monc} ; and, if they have, they can 



334 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

not get to New York with it (and it is redeem- 
able nowhere else); and, if they could get to the 
place of redemption, there is not one-fourth coin 
enough to redeem their money. 

Where is the resumption for the people? 
There is none, and Shylock knows it. 

But how is it with the gold-bugs? 

Ah ! They have it all fixed for themselves. 
They have fifty dollars, and many times fifty. 

Should there come a crisis, they can present 
greenbacks enough for redemption at the sub- 
treasury to pocket what coin there would be 
available, for resumption purposes, in less than 
one week. It is a rich man's resumption — what 
there is of it. It keeps the coin hoarded in 
the treasury, where the rich can pocket it ; but it 
is beyond the reach of those who can least 
afford to lose their money. 

My Countrymen, there is no such thing as 
redeeming our paper money in gold and silver: 
there never was such a thing, and there never 
will be, for the simple reason that the specie 
does not exist, in the country in sufficient amount. 
No thoughtful mind can study the subject 
and not see that the whole resumption policy is 
a blind — a contrivance to keep the volume of 
money small and its price high — to the end that 
labor may pa)' the heavier tribute to capital. 
When there comes a crisis the broker will have 



AS A NATION. 335 

his gold to sell, and the industrial classes a depre- 
ciated currency, and again the breach widens 
between capital and labor. 

How long will an intelligent people tolerate 
such duplicity on the part of their leaders? 
How long will they encourage such a monetary 
system? How long will they lay their hard- 
earned treasures at the feet of the gold gam- 
blers of Wall street? 

THE NATIONAL BANKING SYSTEM. 

The money power has several contrivances for 
absorbing the people's earnings, any one of 
which, if permitted to remain in operation, will 
make an Ireland of this country within the next 
forty years. Of these contrivances, the national 
banking system is one of the most potent. The 
law, authorizing national banks, provides that 
persons, not less than live in number, with 
a capital of not less than fifty thousand 
dollars, may deposit government bonds in the 
United States treasury, and the secretary, 
thereof shall issue to such association of persons 
ninety per cent, of the market value of their 
bonds, in national bank currency. The govern- 
ment furnishes said ninety per cent, all printed, 
stamped and ready for use (except signing). 
This currency the banks loan to the people, at 



336 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

rates of interest, ranging from 6 to 24 per cent. 
On the money so loaned, the government imposes 
a tax of one per cent, per annum, which only a 
little more than covers the cost of furnishing said 
money. In addition to this, the government pays 
the banker interest on his bonds deposited to 
secure his circulation. And most bonds depos- 
ited for that purpose, up to the present, have 
drawn 6 per cent, interest, and are not taxable. 

Does it need further argument to prove that 
such a system, if allowed to continue, will absorb 
the wealth, and finally destroy the liberties of: 
this people ? 

If the farmer could have such privileges as the 
national banks have, he could mortgage his ten 
thousand dollar farm to the government for nine 
thousand dollars, and loan that money to the 
people at from 6 to 24 per cent., and all he 
would need to pay the government would be a 
tax of one per cent, on the amount loaned. Then, 
the government would also pay him six per cent, 
interest on his whole farm, as it does the banker 
on his bonds; and, in addition to all this, the gov- 
ernment would exempt his farm from taxation 
national, state and municipal. 

Would that not be a glorious privilege for the 
farmer? That is just such a privilege as the 
national banks have. Now, why, in the name 
of common sense, do you permit it? Why do- 



AS A NATION. 337 

3'ou permit labor to be robbed in that way? 
Why do you allow corporations to absorb the 
wealth of the nation, at such a fearful rate ? Do 
you not see that such a system is fatal to liberty ? 
You can prevent it by intelligent voting. 

Much has been said about the national bank 
tax. The national banks are taxed by the gen- 
eral government as follows: First, one-half of 
one per cent, per annum, on their monthly aver- 
age of deposits. Second, one-half of one per 
cent per annum on average capital. Third, one 
per cent, per annum on average circulation. 
These taxes are pa}^able semi-annually to the 
United States collector of internal revenue. The 
above covers all the taxes paid by national banks 
to the general government for the extraordinary 
privilege of loaning their debts to the people at 
ruinous rates of interest. Do I say debts. 
Certainly, I do. 

The banks loan their debts to the people, and 
the people use them as money to do business 
with. To illustrate : The banking association 
deposits one hundred thousand dollars in bonds 
with the government, as security for ninety 
thousand dollars in national bank currency. 

When that currency is loaned to the people it 
is the bank's promise to pay to the holders the 
face value of those notes. It is the bank's note 
or debt in the hands of the people, and the people 



338 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

are using it to do business with, while the bank 
is drawing interest on what it owes. Then A B 
and C deposits say another ninety thousand dol- 
lars with the bank. That, of course, they owe to 
their depositors. This they loan to the people. 
Now they owe the government $90,000, and the 
depositors $90,000. Their whole indebtness is 
one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, all of 
which is loaned to the people, at from 6 to 24 
per cent. 

And for all these privileges, the banks pay the 
general government, in all, two per cent, per 
annum. Their real estate, stock, &c, is taxed 
for state and local purposes, the same as other 
property is taxed in the hands of individuals. 
For the sake of illustrating more clearly the 
preference which the government gives the 
national banks over other enterprises, I will give 
a brief account of a conversation I once had with 
a resident of a small city in the state of Wiscon- 
sin. He held that the national banking system 
was no monopoly, inasmuch as it was open to 
any number of men above four, who have the 
requisite fifty thousand dollars. I illustrated to 
my friend, whose name I will call Hamilton, as 
follows : 

Mr. Hamilton — I have one hundred, thousand 
dollar bond, and you have one hundred like them; 
we want to go into business ; I want to go to bank- 



AS A NATION. 339 

ing; you have some other business in view. We 
set out for Washington with our bonds. We 
go to the treasury and present them there; they 
are pronounced good, and we are asked what we 
will have, I answer, that I wish to borrow ninety 
thousand dollars to use in the banking business. 

I say to the Secretary — Of course you under- 
stand what that means : I am going to join with 
other banks, and enlarge the volume of money, 
send prices up, get up a business boom, and, when 
the people get to prospering finely, we will draw 
our money in, contract the volume and send 
prices down again. Then the people cannot pay 
their debts, and we shall get their property for 
half price. In short, Mr. Secretary, I intend to 
do a regular banking business, get all I can for 
my money, collect debts without mercy, pack 
conventions, pay the press to advocate the 
national banking system, and do many other 
things to numerous and horrid to mention. 

"All right," says the secretary: " here is your 
ninety thousand dollars. We shall tax you one 
per cent., just to cover the cost of dies, and other 
expenses connected with its manufacture.'" 

Very well. I take 1113^ ninety thousand dollars, 
and am ready for business. 

The secretary turns to Mr. Hamilton to know, 
what he can do for him. 

Mr. Hamilton informs him that he wishes to 



340 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

borrow ninety thousand dollars, at one per cent., 
stating, at the same time, that he will deposit his 
bonds for security. 

The secretary asks where he intends to locate 
his bank. 

Mr. Hamilton replies — I am not going into 
the banking business. I contemplate an under- 
taking of a very different character. Our little 
city is without manufactories ; and if the govern- 
ment loans me the ninety thousand dollars, at 
pne per cent., as it has Mr. Willey, I shall first 
build a woolen factory in our town. It will give 
to farmers in that locality a better market for 
their wool, and the hands employed in the fac- 
tory will consume the, products of the soil. It 
can but result in great good to the farmers in 
that neighborhood. I expect to employ three 
hundred hands in the factory. And rent is very 
high in our town. I shall build some neat tene- 
ment houses, and let them to the hands cheap. 
I intend the laborers in my employ shall have a 
chance to get a start, if good wages and cheap 
rents will do it. Then I shall donate about five 
thousand dollars for a good lecture room and 
circulating library. I want to raise the intellec- 
tual and moral standard of our community. 
Oh ! Mr. Secretary, I intend to do good with the 
money. 

The secretary passes the bond, back to him, 



AS A NATION. 341 

with the remark, that he can do nothing for him, 
and the following colloquy ensues: 

Hamilton — Is my bond not as good as Mr. 
Willey's? 

Secretary — Yes; just like it. 

Hamilton — Well, you have just loaned him 
ninety-thousand dollars. Why did you do that? 

Secretary — Oh! well, he is going to banking. 

Hamilton— But I am going to help the com- 
munity; not rob it. 

Secretary — Well, your motives may be all 
right; but the government is not loaning money 
for any such purposes. 

At this point my friend interrupted, to learn if 
my dialogue was illustrative of facts. 

"Why, yes," said I. "Did you not know 
it?" 

" No, 1 ' said he; and he asked, with consider- 
able emphasis, this question: " Why such dis- 
crimination in favor of the national banks?" 

" Now, sir," said I, " I have } T ou booked for 
the people's party, and every citizen of your city 
will fall into line, if they can but be induced to 
study, to learn the real condition of our country. 
At every step of the investigation they will 
meet with that which will cause their hearts to 
ache, and the question to leap to their lips: 
' Why this distinction between the rich and 
poor? "' And the ever-present answer must bo: 



34 2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The people have elected capitalists to office." 
And, naturally enough, they have filled the United 
States with enactments, of which the national 
banking law is a fair sample; and that law makes 
it obligatory upon the government to loan money 
at one per cent., for the purpose of banking and 
robbing legally. But if you would build lecture 
rooms, tenement houses, factories, furnish libra- 
ries, or accomplish any other good purpose, you 
must look somewhere else for your money, 
no matter how much interest you offer, nor 
how good your security. 

The national banks have loaned, of their own 
currency, and of their deposits, to the people, 
more than six hundred millions of dollars. Reck- 
oning their average interest at eight per cent., 
deducting therefrom their two per cent, taxes, 
and placing their bonds deposited to secure 
circulation at three hundred millions, and the 
average interest thereon at five per cent., those 
banks draw more than fifty millions of dollars 
from this people annually. Allowing three hun- 
dred working days in a year, and reckoning 
wages at one dollar per day, it will be man- 
ifest that those banks annually absorb an amount 
equal to the entire wages of more than one hun- 
dred and sixty thousand men, to keep them in 
operation. 

Now, can you tell why one hundred and sixty 



AS A NATION. 343 

thousand men should be kept working for two 
thousand two hundred national banks? Every 
cent of that money comes from labor, either 
directly or indirectly. But, say you, "We must 
have banks, and the interest on those bonds 
must be paid, whether deposited by the banks 
to secure circulation or not; so what is the 
difference? " 

I will answer this question in another lecture. 
The national banking system is unnecessary. It 
is a very dangerous monopoly. It is a cruel and 
unjust system of legalized robbery. It is sucking 
the life-blood of this nation; and, ere another 
five years shall roll around, the people will see 
the danger of that system; and, feeling the sting 
of remorse at having permitted it to prey upon 
liberty so long, will sweep the infernal law from 
the statute book, with an indignation that shall 
quicken the falling pulses of American freedom. 

HIGH BONDS. 

When the people come to understand just 
what high-priced bonds mean, they will not 
rejoice that four per cent, bonds are selling at a 
premium of fifteen per cent; for high bonds 
mean low property. High-priced bonds are not 
indicative of a prosperous condition of the people. 
To say that money seeks investment in four per 
cent, bonds, is to say that business docs not oiler 



344 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

a better inducement, else money would go there. 
When business is good, money seeks investment 
in business enterprises, and property becomes 
high and bonds are low. On the other hand, 
when business is not profitable, money leaves the 
channels of trade and seeks investment in bonds ; 
then bonds become high, and other property 
low. 

Solon Chase makes one of his sledge-hammer 
arguments, in about these words: 

" We must force the issue. We must force the 
people to vote for higher property and lower bonds, or 
lower bonds and higher property.'* 

When the people come to understand this 
principle the country will be rescued from the 
grasp of Shylock, without repudiating any debt, 
or violating any contract made with the govern- 
ment creditors. It can be accomplished by 
establishing a monetary system in the interest of 
the people, such as I shall discuss in another 
lecture. 

Mr. Chase makes a very pointed illustration 
of the effects of the policy which has made 
bonds so sought after by the capitalists: He 
says that when they were " strengthening 
the government credit, as they called it and 
raising the value of bonds, by contracting the 
currency, which was lowering the value of other 



AS A NATION. 345 

property, in a corresponding ratio, and Mrs. 
Chase's butter had fallen from fifty to fifteen 
cents per pound, she cried out, 'Hold on! the 
government credit is strong enough.'" ' 

The money power was squeezing too much of 
Mrs. Chase's butter into a dollar, and the same 
was true of Solon's steers. The same process 
that raised the value of a dollar, or bond, lowered 
the value of Chase's steers. He fed and cared 
for those steers a year. They grew large and 
handsome; but, when he offered them for sale, 
they would bring no more than they would the 
year before. And when the bondholder told 
Mr. Chase that he had not been hurt any, 
because he could sell the steers for money enough 
to buy another pair, just as good, Mr. Chase 
answered : 

" I understand, sir, that I can sell my steers for 
money enough to buy another pair just as good, 
because the same thunderbolt that struck me, struck 
everybody else, except the monied class. But I want 
to know who has got my hay and the feed which I have 
given those steers during the last year? 

He had fed and cared for the steers for a year, 
and, to have made himself whole, he needed to sell 
them, not only for money enough to buy another 
pair just as good, but for enough more to pay for 
the feed they had eaten and the care they had 



346 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

received, else his year's feed and care had gone 
for nothing. 

And that was just what had taken place. An 
amount equal to the whole cost of keeping had 
been shrunken out of them, and Mr. Chase 
wisely began to study to find out who, if anybody, 
had gained it. He knew he had lost it; and he 
very soon made the discovery that money and 
bonds had not shrunken in value, but, on the 
contrary, had increased very much. 

It was, then, plain enough that the value had 
been squeezed out of his steers into bonds. In 
other words, the bond and mortgage holder had 
got his hay ; and that is how bonds have become 
so valuable : The value has been squeezed 
out of other property into bonds and mortgages. 

May God hasten the day when the people will 
become well enough informed to take Solon 
Chase's advice, and squeeze some of the value 
of the bonds, back into other property again, 
where it rightfully belongs, and- from which it 
never should have been taken. 

THE POWER OF BONDS TO ROB THE PEOPLE. 

The power of bonds to rob labor and produce 
the dangerous extremes of poverty and wealth, 
may be illustrated in the following manner: 

Jones is a producer, and represents the people; 



AS A NATION. 347 

Strait is a capitalist, and represents the bond- 
holding class. To make the illustration simple 
and clear, I will speak as though Jones and Strait 
were the only persons in the government. Jones 
is the laboring people; Strait is the capitalists. 
Twenty years ago Strait had one thousand dol- 
lars in greenbacks; it was a surplus thousand, 
and he invested it in a government bond, drawing 
six per cent, interest. Jones also had one thous- 
and dollars of the same kind of money, at the 
same time, but it was all he had, and he was 
obliged to invest his in land, from which he could 
dig a livelihood for himself and family. Each 
invested his money as he saw fit, or, rather, 
as circumstances permitted. Now, Strait's bond 
is not taxable for any purpose whatever; but 
Jones' land is taxable. Here, you see, the non- 
taxable bond system gives Strait this advantage 
over Jones: he can invest his money so as to 
escape taxation, while Jones' poverty forbids it — 
he must invest his money in something, from 
which he can get a living for his family, by 
adding his labor to it. 

To further illustrate the advantages which 
accrue to Strait, from our imported, untaxa- 
ble bond system, I will say that, had all the 
wealth of the nation been taxed equally, for 
those twenty years taxes would have averaged 
two per cent., or twenty dollars on a thousand, 



348 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

and Strait's bond not being taxable, Jones must 
pay the twenty dollars in Strait's stead; for 
state, county or municipal expenses are no lower 
because Strait's property is not taxable. If 
Strait gets rid of paying any taxes, Jones must 
pay that much more. 

Now, Strait's bond not being taxable, he has 
saved twenty dollars, which he ought to have 
paid in taxes. But it has fallen that much heavier 
on Jones, and he has paid twenty dollars which 
he ought to have been permitted to save. 

So far Jones has only paid Strait's taxes; he 
must now pay his own, which will require 
another twenty dollars. The comparative differ- 
ence may then be stated, as follows: Jones has 
paid his own and Strait's taxes, which has 
taken forty dollars. Strait, having escaped 
taxation, can count himself twenty dollars ahead ; 
for, had his bond been taxable, it would have 
required twenty dollars to have paid his taxes on 
the bond, but he has saved that twenty dollars, 
and we may consider it added to his thousand. 
He now has one thousand and twenty dollars. 
It has opened a gap of sixty dollars between 
them in one }^ear on a thousand dollar invest- 
ment. 

Now, this Jones can see. He understands 
how he pays his state, county and township 
tax. The assessor comes around and assesses 



AS A NATION. 349 

his property, and he counts down the dollars to 
the tax collector. But the story is not half 
told. Jones is paying a tax which he knows 
nothing about, and Strait is making a draft upon 
him, which Jones does not understand. Strait's 
bond is drawing six per cent. Who pays that ? 
Jones is the people — he must pay it, because 
there is nobody else to pay it. That will take 
another sixty dollars from Jones and hand it over 
to Strait; that sixty dollars goes right from 
Jones' pocket into Strait's. Taking sixty dollars 
from Jones and giving it to Strait widens the gap 
another hundred and twenty dollars. The whole 
distance is now one hundred and eighty dollars. 
Quite a gap for one year, is it not? 

Now, if Jones understood this, and knew just 
how it is being accomplished, he would destroy 
the system which robs him, and Shylock knows 
it. Hence, he has the press and orators telling 
Jones " not to worry about bonds; they don't 
cost him anything, unless he drinks whisky or 
uses tobacco — if he does, there is a little revenue 
to pay, which goes to pay interest on bonds, 
etc." 

To get the sixty dollars, to pay the interest on 
Strait's bond every year, it is arranged to have 
the government come around on the blind side, 
and tax it out of Jones in a way which he will 
not understand as well as he would if the tax 



35° WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

collector came around every year, and compelled 
him to shell out sixty dollars in cash. No part of 
the money paid by Jones to his county collector 
goes to pay the expenses of the general govern- 
ment. The interest on government bonds ; sala- 
ries of officers, etc., are paid mainly from duties 
on imports, and Jones pa}~s it, when he purchases 
goods. 

To give you some idea of how Jones pays the 
interest on Strait's bond, I will copy a short list 
of goods, on which he pays taxes, for that pur- 
pose. The latest report I have before me is for 
1879, entitled " Trade and Commerce, " published 
by the Treasury Department, at Washington. 
Some slight changes may have been made since 
then, but no material change has taken place. 
Of course, you will understand that the importer 
pays these duties in the first place; but he must 
add the amount so paid, to the price of the 
goods, when he sells them to Jones. It is an 
indirect way of taxing the people. The duties 
paid on imported goods I shall denominate as 
taxes paid by the people, which it is. 

In 1879 duties ranged as follows: 

Cotton Goods ranged from 7 1-2 cents, 

a square yard, to 35 per cent. 
Amount imported, $16,933,777,97. 

Taxes paid by the people, •* $6,576,252 50 



AS A NATION. 35 1 

Corset cloth, valued at $6 per doz. ; 
duties, $2 per dozen. Over $6 per 
dozen, duties 35 per cent. 
Amount imported, 6407,229.50. 

Taxes paid by American women, $143,722 43 
Embroidery — Duties, 35 per cent. 
Amount imported, $2,913,433.00, 

Taxes paid by American women, 1,019,701 55 
Flax — -On goods made of flax : towels, 
canvass, thread, lace, etc.; the lowest 
duty on any of them is 30 per cent., 
and the average is nearly 40. 
Amount imported, $16,149,301.10. 

Taxes paid by the people, - 5,442,750 86 

Fruits — 

Dried plums, 2 1-2 cents per pound ; 
Raisins, 2 1-2 cents per pound* 
Figs, 2 1-2 cent per pound ; 
Lemons and Oranges, duties 20 per 
cent., and shelled almonds, 10 per 
cent. 
Amount imported, $10,295,774.75, 

Taxes paid by the people, - 3,004,780 08 

Furs — Imported, $2,773,291.81. 

Taxes paid by the people, - 571,121 16 

Iron bars, chains, bar iron, cut nails, 
boiler, cast butts, hinges, horse- 
SHOE nails — On some of the above- 
mentioned iron the duties are as high 
as 9 cents per pound. Amount im- 
ported, $5,399-760.71. 

Taxes paid by the people, . . 1,982,029.95 
Hemp — Duties, 3 cents per pound. 
Amount imnorted, $7,491,503.40. 

Taxes paid by the people - - 1,708,337.20 



352 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Saws, files, rasps — Amount imported, 

$4,299,604.50. 

Taxes paid by the people - - $1,699,063.74 
Leather — Duties from 10 to 50 per 

cent. Amount imported $7,532,- 

193-73- 

Taxes paid by the people - - 2,620,471.25 

Dress and piece goods — Duties, 60 per 

cent. Amount imported, $13,659,- 

736.60. 

Taxes paid by the people - - 8,195,841.96. 
Potatoes — Duties, 10 cents per bushel. 

Amount imported, $1,345,919.06. 

Taxes paid by the people - - 394,776.82: 

Seeds — Of all kinds, agricultural and 

horticultural. Amount imported, 

$2,278,585.40. 

Taxes paid by the people - - 314,940.47 

Salts — Imported, $1,685,204.39. 

Taxes paid by the people, 798,647 8o> 

Feathers — Ornamental, ostrich, vulture, 

cock, and other crude and not dressed, 

colored or manufactured, 25 per cent ; 
Flowers — Artificial and ornamental, or 

parts thereof, whatever material, not 

otherwise provided, 50 per cent. 
And of those feathers, and fancy arti- 
cles, toys included, there was im- 
ported, $3,441,258.97. 

Taxes paid by the people, 1,776,273 37 

Spices— 

Ginger, duties, 3 cents per pound. 

Cassia, ground, 20 cents per pound. 

Cinnamon, 20 cents per pound; 

Cloves, whole, 5 cents per pound. 



AS A NATION. 353 

Cloves, ground or otherwise prepared, 

30 cents per pound. 
Mustard, ground, in bulk, 10 cents per 

pound. 
Nutmegs, duties 20 cents per pound. 
Amount imported, $443,373. 

Taxes paid by the people, - $183,529 06 

Peppers — Black, white, grained, 5 cents 
per pound ; ground, 10 cents per 
pound. Imported, $524,256.07. 

Taxes paid by the people, . 396,300 85 

Sugar — Duties, 54 per cent. Amount im- 
ported $74,077,045.65, 

Taxes paid by the people, - $40,280,957 35 



Total, - -"'• - - $76,994,556 77 

Here you see you have paid almost eighty 
million dollars taxes on nineteen articles of mer- 
chandise, which are imported and used in this 
country. I have selected such as are most 
generally used, and upon which the duties are 
heaviest. But you are paying tax on between 
seven and nine hundred different articles 
imported from foreign countries. 

When Jones buys sugar, he must pay out one 
dollar and fifty -four cents, in order to get one 
dollar's worth for himself. So it will be seen 
that about fifty-four cents, of his one dollar and 
fifty cents, has gone to pay the interest on Strait's 
bond, and other government expenses. 

Mrs. Jones buys dress goods. The fact that 



354 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

over thirteen million dollars' worth was imported 
in 1879, shows that they are extensively 
used in this country. And, if she buys those 
imported goods — and she does — in fact, they are 
about the best class of goods our laboring women 
can afford to buy — she must pay out one dollar 
and sixty cents to get one dollar's worth for her- 
self. The sixty cents goes to pay interest on 
Strait's bond, and the other expenses of carrying 
on the government. 

When the servant girl works one week for 
two dollars, and spends it for feathers with which 
to adorn her hat, she should remember that 
those feathers are imported, and that more than 
fifty cents of that money has gone to pay the 
interest on Strait's bond. In other words, she 
has worked at least two days of that week for 
the bondholder. I have seen it reported, I know 
not with how much correctness, that the assessed 
valuation of Chicago — the Queen of the West 
and Pride of the Nation — is one hundred and 
seventeen millions of dollars. Vanderbilt is said 
to be worth one hundred and twenty millions. 
If the estimate be correct, he can purchase and 
pay for the city of Chicago, at its assessed valu- 
ation, and have three millions left. Vanderbilt 
is drawing more than six thousand dollars per day, 
from the government, in interest on untaxed 
bonds. And this people — day laborers, servant 



AS A NATION. 355 

girls and over-worked housewives — are paying 
it, as I have illustrated above. 

Now, what excuse does the government, 
which is under the control of the money power, 
have for taxing the people in this way? Why, 
Shylock says it is to protect home manufactures. 
But you will notice that many of those articles 
imported, upon which there is a heavy duty, 
are not manufactured in this country at all. So 
it cannot be said that the tax on those articles 
is to protect the home manufacturer, for there is 
no home manufacturer; a fact which gives the 
lie to Shylock's pretenses at once, so far as those 
goods are concerned. 

Now, let us consider Shylock's pretenses with 
regard to some articles which are manufactured, 
to some extent, in this country. We will take 
sugar and molasses for example. According to 
a table, which I have before me, prepared by 
Henry Kemp, of Brooklyn, New York, in the 
year 1881 we imported, in round numbers, 
($89,000,000) eighty-nine million dollars' worth 
of sugar and molasses. There was manufac- 
tured, of those articles, in the United States, only 
($11,000,000) eleven million dollars' worth. The 
people paid, in taxes, on those article imported, 
forty-seven million dollars ($47,000,000), or more 
than four times as much as the entire crop of 
home manufactured sugar and molasses was 



356 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

worth. Allowing that our home manufacturers 
of those articles were able to double the price of 
their crop in consequence of the tariff, their gain 
would then be ($5,500,000) five million five 
hundred thousand dollars. 

Now, this strange fact stares you in the face. 
You paid $47,000,000 in taxes, on sugar and 
molasses, that the home manufacturer might gain 
$5,500,000. Is that not protection, with a ven- 
geance? 

Do you believe that that way of taxing the 
people is to protect home industries, or do you 
begin to mistrust that it is to compel the labor- 
ing people to pay taxes which, if paid at all, 
ought to be paid by the rich? 

"But," say you, "does not Strait, the bond- 
holder, pay a part, since he purchases those 
goods as well as Jones." 

Yes. But look at what a small per cent, he 
pays. If he has a million dollars invested in 
bonds, he pa}^s no more tax than Jones, with 
his thousand dollars invested in land, unless he 
has a larger family to consume more goods. 
Then, too, the bulk of our bonds are held by less 
than two hundred and fifty thousand persons — 
five per cent, of the population — so it will be 
seen that ninety-five per cent, of the revenue tax 
is paid by Jones, who represents the people. 

Look over Europe and see what the bond 



AS A NATION. 357 

system has done there, and does it not begin to 
tell fearfully on our own country? How long 
can Jones continue to pay Strait's taxes, and 
then pay him interest on his bond besides? 

For twenty years Jones has paid Strait sixty 
dollars per annum in interest on his bond, which, 
for the whole period, amounts to twelve hundred 
dollars, or two hundred dollars more than the 
first cost of Jones' land. This amount has been 
taken from Jones and given to Strait; this, Jones 
has paid in duties on cotton goods, coffee, sugar, 
&c.,; then, in addition to all this, Jones has paid 
the local taxes, which Strait would have had to 
pay if his bond had been taxable as Jones' land 
is; this adds another twenty dollars per annum to 
Jones' burdens and relieves Strait of that much 
local tax. Twenty dollars per annum for twenty 
years amounts to four hundred dollars, and 
this amount, when added to the twelve 
hundred dollars, which Jones has paid Strait as 
interest on his bond, makes sixteen hundred 
dollars which Jones has lost, because he had 
to pay Strait's taxes and interest on his bond. 

The account now stands as follows : 



358 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Jones paid to Strait interest on bond, 

20 years, at $60 per year - - $1,200 

Paid Strait's local taxes twenty years, 

at $20 per year ... - 400 



Total loss .--- $1,600 
Strait has saved local taxes 20 years, 

at $20 per year - - - - $ 400 
Drawn interest from Jones on bond 

20 years, at $60 per year - - 1,200 



Total gain - -" - $1,600 

It will be seen that what Jones has lost Strait 
has gained, Jones having lost sixteen hundred 
dollars and Strait having gained that much. 
The gap between the two men is now $3,200. 
And, remember that, in addition to all this, 
Jones must pay Strait the full face value of his 
bond. Great God! what is to become of Jones? 

It has been objected that, in the above calcu- 
lation, I do not recognize the fact that Jones 
makes his thousand dollar investment pay him a 
large per cent. That fact has no right to enter 
into the calculation. Of course Jones makes his 
labor yield him an income, else he would very 
soon become bankrupt. Mr. Strait has equally 
an opportunity to make his labor yield him an 
income, outside of his bond; for his labor is his, 
the same as Jones'. But all this does not affect 
the fact that thejDond system gives Strait a 
chance to invest his money, so as to compel 



AS A NATION. 359 

Jones, not only to pay his taxes, but pay him 
interest on his bond also. 

Fellow-citizens, I do not claim that the above 
figures show what the exact difference would be 
between the people and the bondholders with an 
equal amount invested, as illustrated by Jones 
and Strait; but they are approximately correct, 
and they tell a fearful story of the cruelty of the 
untaxable bond system. 

It has cost Jones much hard labor and many 
back-aches to pay all that money over to Strait 
and support his family besides, and when grass- 
hoppers or blight has visited his crop he has 
almost given up in despair. But nothing harms 
Strait's bond — come grasshoppers, come hog 
cholera, come tornado, come blight, or mildew. 
Strait's bond draws interest, just the same, and 
Jones must pay it, if it takes his last cow. 

Now, this long-continued draft upon Jones has 
placed him where he must put forth his best 
efforts, and practice most rigid economy, to 
make ends meet at the end of the year. The 
grasshoppers destroy his crops for two years in 
succession, and he finds himself five hundred 
dollars in debt. Still he must continue to pay 
Strait's taxes and the interest on his bond. 

In addition to all this, Strait has managed 
to have the currency contracted, so ns to lower 
the price of what little the grasshoppers have 



360 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

left, which has placed Jones where he must 
borrow money till he can raise another crop. 
Well, the same policy that has made Jones a 
borrower has placed Strait in a good condition 
to go to banking. He got elected to Congress, 
and made laws that enabled him to grow rich 
from Jones' earnings, by making his own prop- 
erty untaxable. He has taken a share of those 
ill-gotten dollars to pay a shameless press to 
deceive Jones into voting to uphold the very 
monetary system that has made him and his 
good wife old before their time, and finally 
involved them hopelessly in debt. Well, Jones 
must go to borrowing, and Strait is going to 
banking. Strait takes the same bond that has 
robbed Jones, directly and indirectly, of eighty 
dollars every year, for twenty years, and, along 
with others, lodges it with the Secretary of Treas- 
ury, and the government counts him out ninety 
per cent, of its value in national bank currency, at 
one per cent., or, I might, say, at about the cost 
of manufacturing, which is the same as giving it 
to him. He is now ready to loan it to Jones at 
ten per cent. Jones goes to Strait and says : 

" Mr. Strait, I want to borrow five hundred 
dollars; can you let me have it? " 

Straight: " I always like to help my friends. 
What security can you give? " 

Jones: " I will give you a mortgage on my 



AS A NATION. 36 1 

land. It is rather hard to mortgage my home, 
but I suppose I must do it. My crops have been 
destroyed for two years, and I was obliged to go 
in debt, even for seed, and I borrowed money of 
my neighbor to pay my taxes." (The poor man 
did not realize that he was paying Strait's taxes, 
too, and that fifty-four per cent, of the money he 
was paying for sugar, was going to help pay 
interest on Strait's bond.) 

Strait: " We don't let money without good 
security; so draw a mortgage representing one- 
half the cash value of your land, if you expect to 
get money here, sir." 

Jones draws a mortgage calling for five hun- 
dred dollars. Strait deducts the interest in 
advance, counts down four hundred and fifty 
dollar to Jones, and records the mortgage against 
him for five hundred. 

Now, Jones is not only paying Strait's taxes, 
and the interest on his bond, but he is paying 
him ten per cent, interest on money which he 
Strait, obtained from the government at one per 
cent. 

Now, I submit the proposition, can our liber- 
ties long endure, with such a monetary system 
as this? Another twenty years and property in 
the United States will be as much concentrated 
as it is in England. So savagely has the money 
power pushed their schemes of robber}', for the 



362 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

last twenty years, that all that has saved us from 
bread riots, as violent and bloody as any that 
ever raged in Europe, has been our almost 
unlimited public domain. Men have been 
continually leaving the densely populated Eastern 
States, and making their homes on the broad 
prairies of the West. In that way we have 
escaped bread riots, but not the effects of 
Shy lock's monetary system. Most men who 
set their faces westward were poor, and found 
themselves obliged to go in debt in order to get 
a start. The damnable, cruel policy, inaugur- 
ated by the gold gamblers of a barbarous age, 
followed the sturdy plowman to the frontier, 
shrunk the volume of money, lowered the price 
of his produce, and robbed him of his new home. 
I believe my estimate low when I say that, at 
least, one-fourth of the farmers who went on 
to the public lands, between i860 and 1872, 
finding themselves unable to bear the burdens 
heaped upon them by the contraction policy and 
the untaxable bond system, are watching their 
chance to sell their farms, so as to have enough 
left after paying their debts, to push their way 
still farther towards the setting sun, in the hope 
of drawing their last breath in a home free from 
debt, and depositing their mortal remains in soil 
safe from the greed of the money power. 



AS A NATION. 363 

TAKING THE LEGAL TENDER QUALITY FROM 
THE GREENBACK. 

Those who are familiar with the workings of 
our imported monetary system, would suppose 
its power to rob to be ample enough to satisfy 
the most avaricious bullion broker on earth. 
The power and perfection of its machinery is 
illustrated in the case of Jones and Strait. The 
people toil hard ; go without the luxuries, and 
many of the necessaries of life, and rarely 
accumulate enough, in forty years, to carry them 
safely through the evening of life. 

It would seem that nowhere on the wide earth 
could be found a single specimen of the human 
race, who would be willing to lessen the chances 
of the people, to keep what is left of the results 
of their labor, after paying the bondholders 
interest and taxes. But, sir, there is. That 
gang of miserable stock-jobbers is still controlling 
this government, and they now propose to 
change our monetary system, so as to destroy 
the last chance which the laborer has to realize 
the benefit of his money, after he has earned it 
and has it in his possession. They propose to 
destroy the only valuable principle in our paper 
money system, viz: The legal fender quality of 
the greenback. 

It is the only valuable principle, because it is 



304 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

all the people have to rely upon. I have already 
shown the impossibility of redeeming our paper 
money in specie, and the national bank money is 
not a legal tender between man and man. It is 
a legal tender to the national banks, for all debts 
except the interest on their bonds, but not to 
other banks. 

Should a state bank or private individual hold a 
mortgage against your horse, and the debt was 
past due, and the last day of redemption had 
come, and you should happen to have nothing 
but national bank money to redeem the property 
with, and the man who held the mortgage saw a 
chance to make money by taking your horse, he 
has a right to refuse to receive the national bank 
money in payment of the debt, and unless you 
could' get greenbacks or specie in season, your 
chances to save your property would be lost. 

The Hon. E. H. Gillett, of Iowa, gives an 
account, in his public speeches, of a case in his 
own state, where a mortgage had been foreclosed, 
and the defendant made a tender of a thousand 
dollars in open court. Eight hundred dollars of 
that money was national bank currency, and, 
consequently, not a legal tender for debt. The 
attorney for the plaintiff looked the money over, 
and refused the eight hundred dollars in bank 
notes, and the suit went on. But the two hun- 
dred dollars in greenbacks were good, because 



AS A NATION. 365 

they were a legal tender for debt, and the plain- 
tiff was obliged to give the defendant credit for 
them. 

Fellow-countrymen, do you wish to have that 
legal tender quality in the greenback destroyed? 

A gentleman, from Missouri, informed me that 
the first hint he ever received that our financial 
system was not sound, was when he had a 
case in court, and went to the bank to draw 
money with which to make a tender, while 
the money was being counted, he happened to 
mention the fact that he was going to tender 
that money in court. He noticed the banker 
withdraw the national bank notes already counted 
and replace them with greenbacks, with the 
remark, that, if he was going to make a tender 
in court, greenbacks would be better. 

Here it will be seen that if the legal tender 
quality had been taken from the glorious old 
greenback, and the defendant obliged to go to 
the sub-treasury in New Yord for specie, 
he would have been in rather a bad fix — he 
would have lost his chance to save his case in 
court. The legal tender quality in the green- 
back saved him. The national bank mone} T is a 
legal tender for taxes, and to the government 
for all debts except duties on imports, and from 
the government for all salaries, and all other 
demands except interest on bonds. 



1,66 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Think of it, the national banker is not obliged 
to receive his own note in payment of the inter- 
est on the bond upon which the note is based. 
The government forces the crippled soldier to 
receive national bank money for his scanty pen- 
sion, although it will not pay his grocer's bill, 
unless the merchant choose to receive it, and the 
soldier can demand no better money. But the 
banker can demand gold for the interest on his 
bond. The national bank note, not being a 
legal tender between man and man, in the 
common business of life, is not a safe money, as 
illustrated by the case in court just referred to. 
The government note (greenback) being a legal 
tender between man and man, is a safe money. 
Now, fellow citizens, is it not difficult to believe 
that Shylock could induce the chief magistrate of 
this nation to recommend the destruction of that 
most valuable principle in the people's money? 
Yet they do succeed in doing that very thing, 
and also the secretar} T of the treasury, in his last 
report refers to the greenback as follows : 

11 That they are convenient and safe for the com- 
munity is without doubt; that it is to the profit of the 
government to continue them is also without doubt, 
yet there is one consideration that should have notice, 
and that is whether the government can continue to 
claim for them the quality of being a legal tender for 
debts." 



AS A NATION. 367 

Here the destruction of the legal tender 
quality in the greenback is recommended by the 
secretary of the treasury,* and the three last 
presidents have favored the same policy; and the 
Republican Convention in Massachusetts, in 1881, 
set forth the following declaration of principles: 

" The coinage of silver dollars of less intrinsic value 
than the gold dollar should be stopped, and the law- 
making paper money a legal tender should be repealed." 

Is more needed to show the devilish purpose 
of those despoilers of the people's prosperity 
and happiness? Robert Ingersoll says he does 
not want dollars that will turn into ashes in the 
hands of widowhood or in the possession of an 
orphan." What hypocracy. How well Robert 
Ingersoll knows that there is not specie enough 
to do the business of the country; that the 
people must use paper money; that the balance 
of trade is liable to turn against us at any time 
and take the specie across the sea; and if the 
government does not suspend specie pa}'ment, 
widows and orphans do not have fifty dollars to 
exchange for specie at the sub-treasury in New 
York. Specie is beyond their reach, and when 
the legal tender quality is taken from the green- 
back, it is liable to become worthless at any time. 

The widow may toil all summer, receiving 
greenbacks for her pay. Then something takes 



368 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

place to cause a panic; the government can not 
redeem, even if she had fifty dollars. Her money 
is not a legal tender; her landlord refuses it for 
rent, because he cannot force his creditors to 
receive it in payment of debt, and the result is, 
the widow and her fatherless children are turned 
into the street. In other words, her hard-earned 
dollar has turned into ashes in her hands. So 
much for Ingersoll's dollar in the hands of 
widowhood. 

My countrymen, will you permit the gold 
gamblers to take the legal tender quality from 
the greenback. It is a crime against the widow 
and the orphan, as well as toiling humanity 
generally, to issue a dollar that is not a legal 
tender; It is always dangerous to those who 
earn it. To the people it means robbery and 
despotism, and that is what Ingersoll & Co.'s 
monetary system has proved to be. It is an 
engine of oppression, and in its march along the 
centuries it has caused more suffering than war. 
And it stands to-day, upon its record of failure 
and crime, without one sound principle to com- 
mend it to the favorable consideration of good- 
men. 



AS A NATION. 369 



LECTURE XL 



WHAT SHALL WE DO. 

"WHAT SHALL, WE DO— THE GOVERNMENT MUST ISSUE THE 
MONEY INSTEAD OF THE BANKS— CAN THE GOVERNMENT ISSUE 
MONEY AND MAKE IT A LEGAL TENDER — CHARLES SUMNER, 
DANIEL WEBSTER AND OTHERS ON THE POWER OF THE GOV- 
ERNMENT WITH REGARD TO MONEY— THE SUPREME COURT ON 
THE POWER OF CONGRESS OVER THE MONEY OF THE COUNTRY 
— CAN THE GOVERNMENT ISSUE MONEY IN TIMES OF PEACE — 
DOES THE MONEY POWER RESPECT THE CONSTITUTION— IS THE 
THEORY THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN ISSUE MONEY TO THE 
PEOPLE NEW — DR. FRANKLIN ORIGINATED THE THEORY OF 
GOVERNMENT MONEY IN THIS COUNTRY— DR. FRANKLIN'S 
ESSAY ON MONEY. 

It is often said that it is easier to find fault 
with an old system than it is to invent a new 
and better one, and I am often met with the 
questions: How shall we remedy these evils? 
How shall we rid ourselves of these burdens? — 
Would you flood the country with money, like 
the French assignats, and that Continental stuff 
no better than rags? 

I answer, no. The French assignat was issued 
by a revolutionary government and based upon a 
confiscated church property, ana was not a legal 
tender to the government, which is the very soul 
and essence of money. 



3 70 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

111 short, like the specie basis system, it had a 
basis which was not- a basis, and, of course, it 
depreciated. 

The continental money was made redeemable 
in Spanish mill dollars, and notwithstanding the 
fact that Congress pledged the faith of the united 
colonies for the redemption of those notes in 
specie, the people found out that it could not be 
done, and the notes, not being a full legal tender, 
depreciated. Of course, the government could 
no more redeem the continental money in specie 
than the government and national banks can 
redeem our paper money in specie now. The 
attempt failed, as all previous attempts had failed, 
and as all attempts made since that time have 
failed, and as all attempts in the future must, for 
the all-sufficient reason that there is not specie 
enough to redeem with. 

No Mr. bullionist, the French assignat and the 
continental money was your kind of money, and 
we want nothing to do with it. 

THE GOVERNMENT MUST ISSUE MONEY, 
INSTEAD OF THE BANKS. 

We demand that every dollar of money, 
whether it be coined from specie, or paper, shall 
be issued by the government, and made a legal 
tender for all debts and dues, public and private, 



AS A NATION. 37 I 

then we know, that every dollar will be good as 
long as the government stands, and if the govern- 
ment goes down; the people will be just as well 
off as they would with the specie payment 
system, for the specie always disappears before 
danger is very imminent. 

But you say the government nas agreed to 
pay the bonds, and interest thereon, in specie. 
Would you force the holder of those bonds to 
take a legal tender greenback? Oh, no! I 
would give him his choice — to take specie or 
greenbacks; and, my word for it, he would 
prefer greenbacks, for well he knows that a full 
legal tender greenback, issued in -reasonable 
amounts, would be as good as gold, and exchange- 
able for gold. Our experience with the sixty 
million full legal tenders, during the war, proved 
that fact to the satisfaction of any candid thinker. 

Here is further proof that the bullionists under- 
stand this, also. Senator Howe, their commis- 
sioner to Paris, is one of them. Of course, his 
views are their views, or President Hayes would 
not have sent him there, for his mission was in 
the interest of the bullionists. In the same 
speech, from which I quoted in a previous lecture, 
I find the following: 

"We are told, that the laws of trade defy political 
regulation, and that whatever states may decree, only 



372 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

intrinsic value, can give authority to money. All his- 
tory refutes this assumption." 



The truth leaks out of Senator Howe over in 
Paris. He says the assumption that only intrinsic 
value can give authority to money is false. 
"All history refutes it." Here we have a clear 
admission, from very high Republican authority, 
that it is not intrinsic value that gives authority 
or debt-paying power to money, but legal value, 
the decree or fiat of the government. 

Senator Howe not only knows that money is 
a creation of laws, and that its value can be 
regulated by the government, but he knows that 
if we get a full legal tender dollar we shall be 
independent of Wall street. The bullion broker 
will be out of a job. He can never again bring 
on panics, create a market for gold, sell it at 
enomous prices, and fatten on the miseries of the 
people. We shall not want his gold to pay 
duties; the greenback will pay them. He may 
hoard his gold — take it to Europe, or a warmer 
climate, if he pleases. 

If our paper money is a full legal tender, we 
know, when we have earned a dollar, that it will 
pay a dollar of debt, so long as the stars and 
stripes wave above the dome of the national 
capitol. With such a money, every citizen of 
the United States will be interested in maintain- 



AS A NATION. 373 

ing the supremacy of the government to the 
extent of every dollar he is worth, because every 
dollar's worth of his property is represented in 
that money. Such money would be a perpetual 
bond of union, and a tower of strength, to the 
Republic. Such a money, with the amount 
limited, by the constitution, and the volume kept 
uniform by law, never permitted to be shrunken, 
nor expanded, only in a fixed ratio to the 
increase of population, will not only give security 
to labor, but it will give stability to prices such 
as the country has never known before. When 
the laborer invests the earnings of thirty years 
of his more vigorous manhood in land, he will 
know something near what his property" will be 
worth the next week. The price of his farm 
and produce will not be the plaything of the 
money power, as it always has been. 

CAN THE GOVERNMENT ISSUE MONEY AND 
MAKE IT A LEGAL TENDER. 

But the bullionists tell us that the government 
has no right to issue such a money; that the 
constitution forbids it. Well, it should be 
remembered that the constitution is the funda- 
mental law of the land, and must not be 
violated. It is the sheet-anchor of our liberties 
— the land-mark which we should watch with 



374 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ceaseless vigilance, lest we find ourselves adrift 
on a shoreless ocean of danger and uncertainty. 
But the constitution was made for the people 
and not the people for the constitution. This is 
a progressive age and the American people are 
peculiarly a progressive people. Human wisdom 
could not frame a law in 1787, that would 
meet the growing necessities of this republic for 
all time : and the wise framers of the constitution 
understood this, and so made provisions for 
amending it, as in the judgment of the sovereign 
people, whose creature it is, circumstances might 
require. They have amended it from time to 
time — as for instance, to prohibit the re-estab- 
lishment of slavery, to enfranchise the colored 
people, etc.; and when the time comes that the 
greatest good of the greatest number requires 
that it be amended again, the American people 
will amend it. But there is no necessity for 
amending the constitution in order to issue a full 
legal tender money, and Shylock knows it. All 
his talk about the unconstitutionality of legal 
tender money is a mere subterfuge to prolong his 
reign over this people. As to the right of con- 
gress to issue money and make it a legal tender, I 
offer the following. 

The Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, 
when discussing the constitutionality of legal 
tender money, said: 



AS A NATION. 375 

" It seems to me that the constitutional power of Con- 
gress to make treasury notes a legal tender was settled 
so long ago as when it was settled that Congress might 
issue treasury notes, for from time immemorial the two 
have gone together — one as the incident of the other. 
The stress that is so continually put upon the prohibi- 
tion, addressed to the states, will justify me in introduc- 
ing the opinion of Mr. Justice Story, in his commenta- 
ries." 

The above is Mr. Sumner's opinion, and now 
follows Mr. Story's: 

" It is manifest that all those prohibitory clauses as 
to coining money, emitting bills of credit, and tender- 
ing anything but gold and silver in payment of debt, 
are founded upon the same general considerations. 
The policy is to found a fixed and uniform rule through- 
out the United States, by which the commercial and 
other dealings of the citizens, as well as the monied 
transactions of the government, might be regulated. 
(2 Story's Com., Sec. 1372). 

" If this view be correct, then no inference, adverse 
to the power of the national government, can be drawn 
from these prohibitory clauses ; for whatever may be 
the policy of the national government, it will be a fixed 
and uniform rule throughout the United States." 

Here we have the opinion of Judge Story, 
one of the most eminent jurists the world has 
ever known, that the clause in the constitution 
which prohibits the states from emitting bills of 
credit, coining money, or making anything but 
gold and silver coin a legal tender, has no refer-' 



376 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ence, whatever, to the right of the general 
government to emit bills of credit, or coin 
money from any material. The sole object of 
the prohibitory clause is to guard against the 
possibility of the issuing of different varieties of 
mone} T , which would be detrimental to the inter- 
ests of the whole country. And the principle is 
a good one. We need a uniform currency, 
equal in value, in every part of the United 
States; and, to secure that end, the fathers gave 
the entire control of the money to Congress. 

Do you not feel the force of Judge Tiffany's 
remark, which I have quoted in a former 
lecture, that to give the government control of 
the circulating medium is common sense; for, 
"otherwise the money power would have the 
nation by the throat." To give corporations 
the power to issue and control the circulating 
medium, is to give them power to control the 
price of labor, and all its products. They now 
have that power, to a very dangerous extent. 
They have the nation by the throat already. 

The power that could, and did, subsidize the 
press, bribe members of Congress, and order 
business men to hold meetings with a view to 
controlling their employes in the interest of the 
old United States bank, with a capital of thirty- 
five millions, all told, and which would have 
crushed any man but Andrew Jackson, was but 



AS A NATION. 377 

a drop to the ocean, when compared to the 
power of two thousand two hundred national 
banks, with their three hundred and fifty million, 
scattered all over the country, with a very large 
proportion of the business community beholden 
to them, to such an extent that to incur the 
displeasure of the banks is to bring ruin upon 
themselves. 

Jefferson realized the danger of permitting 
corporations to issue money, when he penned 
these words, found in Vol. VI, page 608, of his 
works : 

" I sincerely believe that banking institutions are 
more dangerous to liberty than standing armies." 

And again, when he said, in his letter to Mr. 
Eppis : 

" The power to issue money should be taken from 
the banks and restored to the government and people, 
where it belongs." 

That immortal friend of liberty never put to 
paper a single sentiment that will thrill coming 
generations more than this, when they come to 
realize the amount of misery brought upon the 
civilized world by allowing corporations to 
furnish the people money. Read the following 
from the ablest constitutional lawyer that 
America can boast of: 



378 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" The great interests of this country, the producing 
cause of its prosperity, is labor ! labor ! labor ! The 
government was made to encourage and protect this 
industry and give it security. To this very end, with 
this precise object in view, power was given to congress 
over the currency, and over the money system of the 
country." — Daniel Webster, vol. 3, p. 35. 

How can a citizen of this republic read the 
above, from such authority as Daniel Webster 
and continue to think well of those base parti- 
zans of avarice, who have used the press and 
rostrum and other avenues of intelligence, to 
instill into the public mind the false belief that 
the government has not a constitutional right to 
issue money to the people. As a statesman 
of profound knowledge, as a patriot of great 
coolness, as a logician of unsurpassed ability; 
as an orator of the very highest t}'pe, future 
generations will regard Daniel Webster; and 
those utterances are worthy of his great 
heart and great mind. Is it not a sentiment on 
which the admirers of true statesmanship and 
lofty patriotism will love to linger in connection 
with the name of Daniel Webster. " Labor! 
labor! labor!" said he, "It is the producing 
cause of all our prosperity. The government 
was made to protect it, and that it might be pro- 
tected power was given to congress over the 
money system of the country." Well, he 



AS A NATION. 379 

understood that the interests of labor must 
suffer if corporations were permitted to issue 
money. 

The present house and senate know it also, 
but they are monied men, or in the employ 
of monied men, and the people, misled by false 
issues, have not watched their movements. 
The testimony in favor of the constitutional 
right of the government to issue money is over 
whelming. 

Read the following from Gallatin, who was 
twelve years secretary of the treasury. He said : 

" The right of issuing paper money as currency, like 
that of issuing gold and silver coins, belongs exclu- 
sively to the nation, and can not be claimed by any 
individuals." — Writings of A. Gallatin, vol. 3, p. 429. 

On the 31st day of January, 1833, in the 
American Senate, Daniel Webster said: 

" The constitutional power vested in Congress over 
the legal currency of the country is one of the very 
highest powers, and the exercise of this high power is 
one of the strongest bonds of the Union, . . . It is 
not to be doubted that the constitution intended that 
Congress should exercise a regulating power, a power 
both necessary and salutary, over that which should 
constitute the actual money of the country, whether 
this money were coin or the representative of coin. So 
it has always been considered; so Mr. Madison consid- 
ered it."— Works of Daniel Webster, vol. 3, pp. 527-29. 



380 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Mr. Webster then quotes from President 
Madison's message, December 3, 18 16 — Records 
of Congress, 14th Cong., 2d session, p. 16: 

11 It is essential that the nation should possess cur- 
rency of equal value, credit and use, wherever it may 
circulate. The constitution has intrusted Congress 
exclusively with the power of creating and regulating a 
currency of that description." 

Mr. Webster further said, in a speech in the 
Senate, September 28, 1837 (Webster's Works, 
pages 336-340): 

11 The constitution does not stop with this grant of 
the coinage power to Congress. It expressly prohibits 
the states from issuing bills of credit. The states, 
therefore, are prohibited from issuing paper for circu- 
lation on their own credit, and this provision furnishes 
additional and strong proof that all circulation, whether 
of coin or paper, was intended to be subject to the 

regulation and control of Congress The 

Constitution declares that Congress shall have power 
to regulate commerce, not only with foreign nations, 
but between the states. This is a full and complete 
grant, and must include authority over everything 
which is a part of commerce, or essential to commerce. 
And is not money essential to commerce. No man, in 
his senses, can deny that. If Congress, then, has 
power to regulate commerce, it must have a control 
over that money, whatever it may be, by which com- 
merce is actually carried on, whether that money be 
coin or paper. The regulation of money is not so much 
an inference, from the commercial power of Congress, 



AS A NATION. 381 

as it is a part of it. Money is one of those things 
without which we can form no idea of commerce in 
modern times. ... I insist that the duty of Con- 
gress is commensurate with its power. . . A general 
and universally accredited currency, therefore, is an 
instrument of commerce, which is necessary to its just 
advantages, or, in other words, which is essential to its 
beneficial regulation. Congress has power to establish 
it, and no other power can establish it. And, there- 
fore, Congress is bound to exercise its own power. It 
is an absurdity, on the very face of the proposition, to 
allege that Congress shall regulate commerce, but 
shall, nevertheless, abandon to others the duty of sus- 
taining that upon which it is founded." 

I doubt if the reader ever saw a state- 
ment of a principle that was more in accord with 
his common sense and highest conception of 
justice, than that of the Massachusetts states- 
man. The argument is unanswerable. 

" Congress has power to establish a monetary 
system, and no other power can establish it," 
sa}^s the statesman, and so says the reader's 
common sense. 

I will close my argument, upon the right of the 
government to issue money, with a quotation 
from a decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, a majority of whose judges were 
Republicans. 



382 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

THE SUPREME COURT ON THE POWER OF CON- 
GRESS OVER THE MONEY OF THE COUNTRY. 

In the cases Knox vs. Lee and Parker vs. 
Davis, the Court used the following language: 

" Whatever power there is over the currency is vested 
in Congress. If the power to declare what is money is 
not in Congress, it is annihilated." — Supreme Court 
Reports, 12th Wallace, page 545. 

Such is the opinion of the highest tribunal of 
justice recognized by the constitution of the 
United States. Republicans and Democrats, 
have your leading papers and speakers been 
placing these important facts before you or have 
they studiously kept them from you? They 
have not only kept the facts from you as much 
as possible, but the recklessness with which the} r 
have introduced false theories and subterfuges 
for arguments is astonishing, and the extent to 
which they have been able to induce men in 
high places to yield to their demands and prosti- 
tute their positions to the base purpose of 
deceiving the people, is enough to almost make 
one doubt the ability of any man to resist the 
power and influence of money. For example, 
to induce the secretary of the treasury to go so 
far as to make such statements as would 
naturally lead the people to believe that the 



AS A NATION. 383 

constitution justifies the issue of legal tender 
money only in the case of war — as though that 
made any difference. Who is to draw the line 
that is to determine the degree of urgency that 
shall justify the government in issuing money? 
Webster and ' the supreme court say that all 
the power there is over money is vested in 
congress. Why, where do the national banks 
get the power to issue money? Where do 
they get their charter, if not from the gov- 
ernment, and if the government has not power 
to issue money, how can it give the banks power 
to issue money? Can it delegate a power it 
does not possess? What folly. When the 
people's eyes open wide (and they will) to the 
systematic manner in which their confidence 
has been abused by the money power, they will 
consign their present leaders to perpetual quiet- 
ude, under the shade of their own vine and fig 
tree, to suffer the everlasting scorn of those 
whom they haVe so long and so cruelly wronged. 

CAN THE GOVERNMENT ISSUE MONEY IN TIME 
OF PEACE. 

The money power has told the people continu- 
ally, through the press, that the government had 
no right to issue money, only as a war necessity. 

As to the question of war necessity, by which 



384 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the bullionists would delude the people, the 
supreme court sets it to rest, as follows: 

"The degree of the necessity for any congressional 
enactment or the relative degree of its appropriate- 
ness, is for consideration in congress, not here. When 
the law is not prohibited, and is really calculated to 
effect any of the objects intrusted to the government, to 
undertake here to inquire into the degree of its neces- 
sity, would be to pass the line which circumscribes 
the judicial department, and to tread upon legislative 
ground."— Wallace's Supreme Court Reports, Vol. Xll r 
page 542. 

Here the Supreme Court decides the point 
as clearly as language can: " That the degree of 
necessity, for any congressional enactment, must 
be determined by congress. In other words,, 
it does not base its decision upon the contingency 
of war, but clearly states that when a law is 
really calculated to effect any of the objects 
intrusted to the government, congress has the 
constitutional power to enact it." 

That is common sense, is it not? What man 
in his senses will deny the power of Congress to 
do whatever the good of the people demands, in 
the time of peace, no less than in the time of 
war? And if government has the right to issue 
money at all, it is, in duty, bound to make it a 
full legal tender. Indeed, it is an outrage upon 
labor not to do so. 



AS A NATION. 385 

It is dishonest for the government to ask her 
citizens to leave their homes and face death on 
the battle-field, and then pay them in money 
which their creditors are not obliged to receive 
in payment of debt. Such money would be no 
better than that issued upon the pretended specie 
basis.. That is the kind of money that turns into 
ashes, in the hands of widowhood. We do not 
want it. 

If I may flatter myself that this lecture will 
find a reader, I say to him, that as a result of 
much observation and considerable experience, I 
judge that no candid mind ever did or ever will 
study the question carefully and not become con- 
vinced that it is the right and duty of this 
government to issue the money directly to the 
people, instead of through the banks. And I will 
add that I have observed enough to convince me 
that there is not a banker in the United States 
who does not believe just as I do in regard to the 
matter; but it would be against the interest of 
bankers, and they oppose it, without being able 
to produce one sound argument against it. 

No act was ever placed upon the statute book 
that was more clearly unconstitutional than the 
national banking law is. 



386 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

DOES THE MONEY POWER RESPECT THE CON- 
STITUTION? 

But what attention has the house and senate, 
or even our president, paid to the constitution 
for the last twelve years? They walk through 
it as unconcernedly as the elephant walks through 
a spider's web, when it suits their purpose to do 
so. Consider the following, and be convinced. 
Before the president enters on the execution of 
his office, he takes the following oath : 

" I do solemnly swear (or affirm)*that I will faithfully 
execute the office of the President of the United States, 
and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and 
defend the Constitution of the United States." 

Now, in article II, section 7, of the constitu- 
tion, I find the following: 

" The president shall, at stated times, receive for his 
services a compensation, which shall neither be 
increased nor diminished during the period for which 
he shall have been elected; and he shall not receive, 
during that period, any other emolument from the 
United States, or any of them.'' 

Here the president has taken a solemn oath to 
preserve, protect and defend the constitution. 
And the constitution expressly declares that his 
salary shall not be increased during the term for 
which he shall have bee?i elected. And had not 



AS A NATION 387 

Gen. Grant been elected for a second term, when 
he signed the bill which increased his salary from 
twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars per annum. 
It is a quibble to say that he had not been 
inaugurated- He had been elected for a second 
term. He had not been inaugurated, it is true, 
and, for that reason, did not violate the letter of 
the constitution; still he violated the spirit of it 
just as much as though he had been inaugurated. 
Who does not know that that prohibitory clause, 
in the constitution, was intended to prevent the 
very thing which he did,viz : increased the salaries 
of future presidents for the sake of increasing his 
own ? It was to remove that temptation from the 
president, that the fathers placed that clause 
in the constitution; the house and senate were 
also indirect violators of the spirit of the consti- 
tution; they knew of that prohibitory clause; still 
they passed the bill, which they knew the presi- 
dent could not sign without violating the spirit 
of the constitution; but they also knew what 
stuff General Grant was made of. That same 
bill increased their own salary, and that was 
sufficient inducement for them to pass and 
present it to the president to sign, and the 
twenty-five thousand dollars per annum for the 
the four years which the president was to servo, 
furnished a one hundred thousand dollar argu- 
ment, which, in the opinion of General Grant, 



388 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

would outweigh all the oaths and constitutions 
ever invented. So much for their respect for 
the constitution. They care no more for it than 
they do for a last year's almanac, and their plea 
that the constitution stands in the way of the 
government issuing money to the people is a 
sham. They do not believe one word of it, 
judging and from their past career, if they did, it 
would not constitute a valid objection in their 
minds. The government, and the government 
only, has the constitutional right to issue 
money; and, as Webster has wisely said, 
congress is bound to exercise that power, 
and it is the patriotic duty of the people to see 
to it that congress does exercise that power. 
I have had it said to me: " Mr.Willey, I should 
like to see your theory of money put into prac- 
tice, but I am not quite certain that it w^ould 
work w T ell, although I can see no good reason 
why it should not/' The remark often sends a 
tremor of fear through my mind, lest the people 
timidly fail to trust their own reason, common 
sense and history, instead of the theories of those 
who grow rich by deceiving them, until it is too 
late to save the country from the grasp of Shy- 
lock without a bloody revolution. Can anything 
be worse than the system we have always 
endured? And the present has only one decided 
advantage over the former, to-wit: the legal 



. AS A NATION. 389 

tender quality in the greenback; and that is about 
to be destroyed. When that is destroyed, we 
shall be as much at the mercy of the bullionists 
as ever. And even now they can bring disaster 
upon the country, and reap a harvest for them- 
selves, whenever they see fit; and they do so 
just as often as they think the people can stand 
it; they have been in the habit of doing so about 
once in ten years. They understand that they 
must not quite destroy the bees; for, if destroyed, 
they cannot manufacture any more honey for 
them. 

IS THE THEORY THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN 
ISSUE MONEY TO THE PEOPLE NEW? 

Another thought, which is not cheering to 
one who sees where we are drifting, is, that the 
money power has been so successful in making the 
people believe that the idea, that the government 
can issue money to the people, is new, and, 
therefore, the attempt would be purely experi- 
mental. Nothing can be further from the truth. 
The system we propose, so far as the issue of 
money by the government, and its non-redeem- 
ability in specie is concerned, was understood 
and practiced in Venice more than seven hun- 
dred years ago. 

The bank of Venice existed more than six 



390 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

hundred years, and during the last four hundred 
years of its existence, its notes contained no 
promise to pay in specie — they were absolute 
money; and yet those notes, so issued, were at 
a premium of twenty per cent above gold ! — not 
because they were redeemable in coin (for they 
were not) — but because they were the money of 
account; the standard of payment fixed by law 
— were legal tenders. During those six cen- 
turies in which the bank existed, there was 
neither financial crash nor disaster; it was the 
most beneficient banking system the world ever 
saw; it fell when Napoleon conquered Venice. 
For a more extended history of the Bank of 
Venice, see Colwell's digest of fourteen authori- 
ties. 

A very good condensed history of the Bank 
of Venice is also found in Heath's Labor and 
Finance Revolution. But, sir, we have no need 
to rummage among the dusty records of other 
countries to find a precedent for such a system 
of banking as I propose. 

DR. FRANKLIN ORIGINATED THE THEORY OF 
GOVERNMENT MONEY IN THIS COUNTRY. . 

Here I will place before the reader what, in 
my judgment is at the present time, the most 
valuable bit of history in the United States. 



AS A NATION. 39 1 

Read it, because its of eminently practical and 
common sense teachings. Read it, because it 
puts to silence and to shame the mass of modern 
Shylock statesmen, who are endeavoring to 
make the people believe that the idea, that the 
government can issue money and loan it to the 
people, is ridiculous in the light of history. Read 
it because it demonstrates the benificience of 
such a system. Read it, because it proves that 
the attempt would not be experimental. Read 
it, because it is aglow with patriotism and 
replete with wisdom. Read it, because of its 
responsible origin. 

It originated with the immortal Franklin. 
Just such a monetary system as we propose was 
called into existence in this country by Benjamin 
Franklin. And whose fame rests upon a more 
enduring foundation than his? There are some 
flashes of wit, some happy hits, and some bursts 
of eloquence in the writings and speeches of Ben- 
jamin Franklin; but they were purely incidental. 
They were not premeditated and they form no 
part of his historic character. He was, pre-emi- 
nently a philosopher, and decidedly practical. 
There was nothing of the visionary or superficial 
about him. lie was one of the most remarkably 
endowed men known to history. His mind not 
only swept the whole sky of thought, in its 
majestic march through the universe of knowl- 



39 2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

edge, but it caught and analysed the smallest 
star. He was no less great in dissecting and 
readjusting a small subject than in comprehend- 
ing the great whole. 

Those powers, of mind fortified and invigorated 
with a very large fund of historical knowledge, and 
blending with a stern integrity and lofty purpose, 
gave him a control over the great minds of his 
generation second to no other man. 

One of England's ablest orators and thinkers 
(Lord Erskine) said "that those who met in 
convention to frame the constitution of the 
United States, constituted the wisest body of 
men that ever assembled on earth for a similar 
purpose.'' 1 

And no mind was more active, no council 
more sought, and no voice more potent, in that 
immortal convention, than that of Benjamin 
Franklin. Of his towering genius was born the 
first and only safe and honest monetary system 
the United States has ever had within its borders. 
It was his child, and regardless of the wishes of its 
honored parent, or the good it was doing, the 
money power would have throttled it in its infancy. 
But behind it was the strong arm of Benjamin 
Franklin — he guarded its cradle, and saw it walk 
forth in mature manhood — and when fifty years 
were resting upon its brow, it had scattered 
numberless blessings through the land, and 



AS A NATION. 393 

was reaching across the sea, rebuking old 
systems of robbery, scattering the squadrons of 
money kings, and sending dismay in the camp of 
despots. 

When the war of the Revolution put an 
end to its glorious career, it was winning golden 
opinions from the great and good of two conti- 
nents. Without further comment, I will place 
its history before the reader. It is taken from 
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography: and, inas- 
much, as my attention was first called to it 
by a speech made in congress by Hon. E. H. 
Gillett, of Iowa, and as I deem his accompanying 
remarks able and pointed, I will give them also. 
The quotation from Dr. Franklin, on account of 
its importance, is printed in large type. Like all 
the productions of the great American thinker, it 
will bear study and criticism. I will pit it against 
the sophistry of a forest of the hirelings of the 
money power. Read every word; it extends to 
page 417, and is ns follows: 

DR. FRANKLIN'S ESSAY ON MONEY. 

" There is a certain proportionate quantit}* of 
money requisite to carry on the trade of a coun- 
try freely and correctly ; more than which would 
be of no advantage in trade, and less, if much 
less, exceedingly detrimental to it. 

" This leads us to the following general consid- 
erations : 



394 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" First. A great want of money of any trading 
country occasions interest to be : t a very high 
rate. And here it may be observed that 
it is impossible by any laws to restrain men 
from giving and receiving exorbitant inter- 
est where money is suitably scarce; for he 
that wants money will find out ways to give 
10 per cent, when he cannot have it for less, 
although the law forbids to take more than 6 
per cent. Now, the interest of money being 
high is prejudicial to a country several ways. It 
makes land bear a low price, because few men 
will lay out their money in land when they can 
make a much greater profit by lending it out upon 
interest. And much less will men be inclined 
to venture their money at sea when they can, 
without risk or hazard, have a great and certain 
profit by keeping it at home ; thus trade is dis- 
couraged. And, if in two neighboring countries 
the traders of one, by reason of a greater plenty 
of money can borrow it to trade with at a lower 
rate than the traders of the other, they will 
infallibly have the advantage and get the great- 
est part of that trade into their own hands; for 
he that trades with money he hath borrowed 
at 8 or io per cent, cannot hold market with 
him that borrows his money at 6 or 4. 

" On the contrary, a plentiful currency will 
occasion interest to be low and this will be an 



AS A NATION. 395 

inducement to many to lay out their money in 
lands rather than put it out to use, by which 
means lands will begin to rise in value, and bear 
a better price, and at the same time it will tend 
to enliven trade exceedingly because people will 
find more profit in employing their money that 
way than in usury, and many that understand 
business very well, but have not a stock sufficient 
of their own will be encouraged to borrow 
money to trade with when they can have it at a 
moderate interest. 

u Secondly. Want of money in a country 
reduces the price of that part of its produce 
which is used in trade; because, trade being dis- 
couraged by it as above, there is a much less 
demand for that produce. And this is another 
reason why land in such a case will be low, 
especially where the staple commodity of the 
country is the immediate produce of the land; 
because, that produce being low, fewer people 
find an advantage in husbandry or the improve- 
ment of land. On the contrary, a plentiful cur- 
rency will occasion the trading produce to bear 
a good price; because, trade being encouraged 
and advanced by it, there will be a much greater 
demand for that produce, which will be a great 
encouragement of husbandry and tillage, and 
consequently make land more valuable, for that 
many people would apply themselves to 



396 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

husbandry who probably might otherwise 
have sought some more profitable employment. 
"As we have already experienced how much 
the increase of our currency by what paper 
money has been made has encouraged our trade, 
particularly to instance only in one article, 
ship-building, it may not be amiss to observe 
under this head what a great advantage it must 
be to us as a trading country, that has workmen 
and all the materials proper for that business 
within itself, to have ship-building as much as 
possible advanced; for every ship that is built 
here for the English merchants, gains the prov- 
ince her clear value in gold and silver, which 
must otherwise have been sent home for returns 
in her stead; and likewise every ship built in and 
belonging to the province not only saves the 
province her first cost, but all the freight, wages, 
and provisions*, she ever makes or require as long 
as she lasts, provided care is taken to make this 
her pay-port, and that she always takes provis- 
ions with her for the whole voyage, which may 
easily be done. And how considerable an article 
this is yearly in our favor every one the least 
acquainted with mercantile affairs must needs be 
sensible; for, if we could not build ourselves, we 
must either purchase so many vessels as we want 
from other countries or else hire them to carry 
our produce to market, which would be more 



AS A NATION. 397 

expensive than purchasing, and on many other 
accounts exceedingly to our loss. Now, as trade 
in general will decline where there is not a suffi- 
cient currency, so ship-building must certainly 
in consequence decline where trade is declining. 

" Thirdly. Want of money in a country dis- 
courages laboring and handcraftmen (who are 
the chief strength and support of a people) from 
coming to settle in it and induces many that 
xwere settled to leave the country and seek enter- 
tainment and employment in other places, where 
they can be better paid. For what can be 
more disheartening to an industrious laboring 
man than this, that after he hath earned his bread 
with the sweat of his brow, he must spend as much 
time and have near as much fatigue in getting 
it as he had to earn it! And nothing makes 
more bad paymasters than a general scarcity of 
money. And here again*" is a third reason for 
lands bearing a low price in such a country, 
because land always increases in value in pro- 
portion with the increase of people settling on 
it there being so many more buyers, and its 
value will infallibly be diminished if the number 
of its inhabitants diminish. On the contrary, a 
plentiful currency will encourage great numbers 
of laboring and handicraftmen to come and 
settle in the country, by the same reason that a 
want of it will discourage and drive them out. 



398 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Now, the more inhabitants the greater demand 
for land (as is said above), upon which it must 
necessarily rise in value and bear a better price. 
The same may be said of the value of house- 
rent, which will be advanced for the same 
reasons, and by the increase of trade and riches 
people will be enabled to pay greater rents. 
Now, the value of house-rent rising and interest 
becoming low, many that in a scarcity of money 
practiced usury, will probably be more inclined 
to building, which will likewise sensibly enliven 
business in any place, it being an advantage not 
only to brickmakers, bricklayers, masons, car- 
penters, joiners, glaziers, and several other trades 
immediately employed by building, but likewise 
to farmers, brewers, bakers, tailors, shoemakers, 
shopkeepers, and, in short, to 1 every one that 
they lay their money out with. 

" Thus we have seen some of the many heavy 
disadvantages a country (especially such a coun- 
try as ours) must labor under when it has not a 
sufficient stock of running cash to manage its 
trade currently. And we have likewise seen 
some of the advantages which accrue from 
having money sufficient or a plentiful currency. 

The foregoing paragraphs being well consid- 
ered, we shall naturally be led to draw the 
following conclusions with regard to what per- 



AS A NATION. 399 

sons will probably be for or against emitting a 
large additional sum of paper bills in this prov- 
ince: 

" 1. Since men will always be powerfully influ- 
enced in their opinions and actions by what 
appears to be their particular interest, therefore 
all those who, wanting courage to venture in 
trade, now practice lending money on security 
exorbitant interest, which in a scarcity of money 
will be done, notwithstanding the law — I say all 
such will probably be against a large addition to 
our present stock of paper money, because a ' 
plentiful currency will lower interest and make 
it common to lend on less security. 

"2. All those who are possessors of large 
sums of money, and are disposed to purchase 
land, which is attended with a great and 
sure advantage in a growing country as 
this is — I say the interest of all such men will 
incline them to oppose a large addition to 
our money; because their wealth is now con- 
tinually increasing by the large interest they 
receive, which will enable them (if they can keep 
land from rising) to purchase more some time 
hence than they can at present; and in the 
meantime, all trade being discouraged, not only 
those who borrow of them but the common 
people in general will be impoverished and, 
consequently, obliged to sell more land for less 



400 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

money than they will do at present. And yet, 
after such men are possessed of as much land as 
they can purchase, it will then be their interest 
to have money made plentiful, because that will, 
immediately make land rise in value in their 
hands. Now, it ought not to be wondered at if 
people, from a knowledge of a man's interest, do 
sometimes make a true guess at his designs; for 
interest, they say, will not lie. 

" 3. Lawyers and others concerned in court 
business will probably many of them be against 
plentiful currency; because people in that 
case will have less occasion to run in debt, and 
consequently less occasion to go to law and sue 
one another for their debts. Though I know 
some, even among these gentleman, that regard 
the public good before their own apparent private 
interests. 

" 4. All those who are in any way dependents 
on such persons as are above mentioned, whether 
holding offices as tenants, or as debtors, must 
at least appear to be against a large addition, 
because if they do not they must sensibly feel the 
present interest hurt. And besides these there 
are doubtless many well-meaning gentlemen and 
others who, without any immediate private 
interest of their own in view, are against making 
such an addition through an opinion they may 
have of the honesty and sound judgment of 



AS A NATION. 40I 

some of their friends who oppose it (perhaps for 
the one aforesaid), without having given it any 
thorough consideration themselves. And thus 
it is no wonder if there is a powerful party on 
that side. 

" On the other hand, those who are lovers of 
trade, and delight to see manufactures encour- 
aged, will be for having a large addition to our 
currency. For they very well know that people 
will have little heart to advance money in trade 
when what they can get is scarce sufficient to 
purchase necessaries and supply their families 
with provisions. Much less will they lay it out 
in advancing new manufactures; nor is it possible 
new manufactures should turn to any account 
where there is not money to pay the workmen, 
who are discouraged by being paid in goods, 
because it is a great disadvantage to them. 

"Again: those who are truly for the proprie- 
tor's interest (and having no separate views of 
their own that are predominant) will be heartily 
for a large addition; because, as I have shown 
above, plenty of money will, for several reasons, 
make land rise in value exceedingly. And I appeal 
to those immediately concerned for the proprietor 
in the sale of his lands, whether land has not 
risen very much since the first emission of what 
paper currency we now have, and even by its 



4-02 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

means. Now, we all know the proprietary has 
great quantities to sell. 

"And since a plentiful currency will be so great 
a cause of advancing this province in trade and 
riches, and increasing the number of its people, 
which, though it will not sensibly lessen the inhab- 
itants of Great Britain, will occasion a much 
greater vent and demand for their commodities 
here, and allowing that the Crown is the more 
powerful for its subjects increasing in wealth and 
number, I can not think it the interest of England 
to oppose us in making as great a sum of paper 
money here as we, who are the best judges of 
our own necessities, find convenient. And if I 
were not sensible that the gentlemen of trade in 
England, to whom we have already parted with 
our silver and gold, are misinformed of our 
circumstances, and therefore endeavor to have 
our currency stinted to what it now is, I should 
think the government at home had some reasons 
for discouraging and impoverishing this province 
which we are not acquainted with. 

It remains now that we inquire whether a 
large addition to our paper currency will not 
make it sink in value very much. And here it 
will be requisite that we first form just notions of 
the nature and value of money in general. 

As Providence has so ordered it that not only 
different countries, but even different parts of the 



AS A NATION. 403 

same country have their peculiarly most suitable 
productions, and like-wise that different men 
have geniuses adapted to a variety of different 
arts and manufacturers, therefore commerce, or 
the exchange of one commodity or manufacture 
for another, is highly convenient and beneficial 
to mankind. As for instance, A may be skillful 
in the art of making cloth and B understands the 
raising of corn. A wants corn and B cloth; 
upon which they make an exchange with each 
other for as much as each has occasion for, to 
the mutual advantage and satisfaction of both. 
But as it would be very tedious if there were 
no other way of general dealing but by an imme- 
diate exchange of commodities, because a man 
that had corn to dispose of and wanted cloth for 
it, might, perhaps, in his search for a chapman 
to deal with, meet with twenty people that had 
cloth to dispose of but wanted no corn, and with 
twenty others who wanted his corn but had no 
cloth to suit him with, to remedy such inconven- 
iences and facilitate exchange men have invented 
money, properly called a medium of exchange, 
because through or by its means labor is 
exchanged for labor or one commodity for 
another. And whatever particular thing men 
have agreed to make this medium of, whether 
gold, silver, copper, or tobacco, it is to those 
who possess it (if they want anything) that very 



404 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

thing which they want, because it will immedi- 
ately procure it for them. It is cloth to him that 
wants cloth and corn to those that want corn, 
and so of all other necessaries it is whatsoever it 
will procure. Thus he who has corn to dispose 
of and wanted to purchase cloth with it might 
sell his corn for its value in the general medium 
to one who wanted corn but had no cloth, and 
with this medium he might purchase cloth of him 
that wanted no corn, but perhaps some other 
thing, as iron, it may be, which this medium will 
immediately procure, and so he may be said to 
have exchanged his cloth for iron, and thus the 
general change is soon performed to the satisfac- 
tion of all parties with abundance of facility. 

" For many ages those parts of the world which 
are engaged in commerce have fixed upon gold 
and silver as the chief and most proper material 
for this medium, they being in themselves valu- 
able metals for their fineness, beauty, and scarcity. 
By these, particularly by silver, it has been usual 
to value all things else. But as silver itself is of 
no certain permanent value, being worth more or 
less according to its scarcity or plenty, therefore 
it seems requisite to fix upon something else 
more proper to be made a measure of values, 
and this I take to be labor. 

" By labor may the value of silver be measured 
as well as other things. As suppose one man 



AS A NATION. 405 

employed to raise corn, while another is digging 
and refining silver; at the year's end or at any 
other period of time the complete produce of 
corn and that of silver are the natural ,price of 
each other, and if one be twenty bushels and the 
other twenty ounces, then an ounce of that 
silver is worth the labor of raising a bushel of 
that corn. Now, if by the discovery of some 
nearer, more easy, or plentiful mines, a man may 
get forty ounces of silver as easily as formerly 
he did twenty, and the same labor is still required 
to raise twenty bushels of corn, then two ounces 
of silver will be worth no more than the same 
labor of raising one bushel of corn, and that 
bushel of corn will be as cheap at two ounces as 
it was before at one, cater is ^paribus. 

" Thus the riches of the country are to be 
valued by the quantity of labor its inhabitants 
are able to purchase, and not by the quantity of 
silver and gold they possess, which will purchase 
more or less labor, and, therefore, is more or 
less valuable, as is said before, according to its 
scarcity or plenty. As those metals have grown 
much more plentiful in Europe since the dis- 
covery of America, so they have sunk in value 
exceedingly; for to instance, in England, for- 
merly one penny of silver was worth a day's 
labor, but now it is worth hardly the sixth part 
of a day's labor, because not less than sixpence 



406 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

will purchase the labor of a man for a da}' in 
any part of that kingdom, which is wholly to be 
attributed to the much greater plenty of money 
now in England than formerly. And yet, per- 
haps, England is in effect no richer now than at 
that time, because as much labor might be pur- 
chased or work got done of almost any kind for 
£100 then as will now require or is now worth 
£600. 

"As those who take bills out of the banks in 
Europe put in money for security, so here and in 
some of the neighboring provinces we engage 
our land. Which of these methods will most 
effectually secure the bills from actually sinking 
in value comes next to be considered. 

" Trade in general being nothing else but the 
exchange of labor for labor, the value of all 
things is, as I have said before, most justly meas- 
ured by labor. Now, suppose I put my money 
into a bank and take out a bill for the value, if 
this bill at the time of my receiving it would 
purchase me the labor of one hundred men for 
twenty days, but some time after will only pur- 
chase the labor of the same number of men for 
fifteen days, it is plain the bill has sunk in value 
one-fourth part. Now silver and gold being of 
no permanent value, and as this bill is founded 
on money, and therefore to be esteemed as such, 
it may be that the occasion of this fall is in the 



AS A NATION. 407 

increasing plenty of gold and silver, by which 
money is one-fourth less valuable than before, 
and therefore one-fourth more is given of it for 
the same quantity of labor, and if land is not 
become more valuable by some proportionate 
decrease of the people, one-fourth part more of 
money is given for the same quantity of land, 
whereby it appears that it would have been more 
profitable to me to have laid that money out in 
land which I put into the bank than to place it 
there and take a bill for it. And it is certain 
that the value of money has been continually 
sinking in England for several ages past, because 
it has been continually increasing in quantity. 
But if bills could be taken out of a bank in 
Europe on a land security, it is probable the 
value of such bills would be more certain and 
steady, because the number of inhabitants con- 
tinues to be near the same in those countries from 
age to age. 

" For as bills issued upon money security are 
money, so bills issued upon land are in effect 
coined land. 

" Therefore, (to apply the above to our own 
circumstances) if land in this province was falling* 
or any way likely to fall, it would behoove the 
legislature most carefully to contrive how to 
prevent the bills issued upon land from falling 
with it. But as our people increase exceedingly, 



408 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

and will be further increased, as I have before 
shown, by the help of a large addition to our 
currency, and as land is continually rising, so in 
case no bills are emitted but what are upon land 
security, the money acts in every part punctually 
enforced and executed, the payments of principal 
and interest being duly and strictly required, and 
the principal bona fide sunk according to law, it is 
absolutely impossible such bills should ever sink 
below their first value or below the value of 
the land on which they are founded. In short, 
there is so little danger of their sinking that 
they would certainly rise as the land rises if they 
were not emitted in a proper manner for pre- 
venting it. That is, by providing in the act that 
payment may be made either in those bills or in 
any other bills made current by any act of the 
legislature of this province, and that the interest 
as it is received maybe again emitted in dis- 
charge of public debts whereby circulating, it 
returns again into the hands of the borrowers, and 
becomes part of their future payments, and thus, 
as is likely, there will not be any difficulty for 
want of bills to pay the office ; they are hereby 
kept from rising above their first value. For else, 
supposing there should be emitted upon mort- 
gaged land its full present value in bills, as in the 
banks in Europe, the full value of the money 
depositied given out in bills, and supposing the 



AS A NATION. 409 

office would take nothing but the same sum in 
those bills in discharge of the land, as in the 
banks aforesaid, the same sum in their bills must 
be brought in in order to receive out the money; 
in such case the bills would most surely rise in 
value as the land rises, as certainly as the bank 
bills founded on money fall if that money was 
falling. Thus, if I were to mortgage to a loan 
officer or bank a parcel of land now valued at 
£100 in silver, and receive for it the like sum in 
bills, to be paid in again at the expiration of a 
certain term of years, before which my land, 
rising in value, becomes worth £150 in silver, it 
is plain that if I have not these bills in possession, 
and the office will take nothing but these bills, or 
else what it is now become worth in silver, in 
discharge of my land — I say it appears plain that 
those bills will now be worth £150 in silver to 
the possessor, and if I can purchase them for less, 
in order to redeem my land, I shall be so much 
the gainer. 

"I need not say anything to convince the judi- 
cious that our bills have not yet sunk, though 
there has been some difference between them 
and silver, because it is evident that that differ- 
ence occasioned by the scarcity of the latter, 
which is now become a merchandise, rising and 
falling like other commodities as there is a 



41 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

greater or less demand for it, or as it is more or 
less plenty. 

" Yet further, in order to make a true estimate 
of the value of money we must distinguish 
between money as it is bullion, which is mer- 
chandise, and as by being coined it is made 
currency. For its value as a merchandise and 
its value as a currency are two distinct things, 
and each may possibly rise and fall in some 
degree independent of the other. Thus, if the 
quantity of bullion increases in a country, it will 
proportionately decrease in value; but if at the 
same time the current coin should decrease 
(supposing payments may be made in bullion), 
what coin there is will rise in value as a cur- 
rency; that is, people will give more labor in 
manufactures for a certain sum of money. 

" In the same manner must we consider a 
paper currency founded on land, as it is land and 
as it is currency. 

" Money as a bullion or as land is valuable by 
so much labor as it costs to procure that bullion 
or land. 

" Money as a curenc}- has an additional value 
by so much time and labor as it saves in the 
exchange of commodities. 

"If as a currency it saves one-fourth part of 
the time and labor of a country, it has on that 
amount one-fourth added to its original value. 



AS A NATION. 4 1 1 

" When there is no money in a country all com- 
merce must be by exchange. Now, if it takes 
one-fourth part of the time and labor of a coun- 
try to exchange, or get their commodities 
exchanged, then, in computing their value, that 
labor of exchanging must be added to the labor 
of manufacturing those commodities. But if that 
time or labor is saved by introducing money 
sufficient then the additional value on account of 
the labor of exchanging may be abated and 
things sold for only the value of the labor in 
making them, because the people may now in 
the same time make one-fourth more in quantity 
of manufactures than they could before. 

" From these considerations it may be gath- 
ered that in all the degrees between having no 
money in a country and money sufficient for 
the trade it will rise and fall in. value as a cur- 
rency in proportion to the decrease or increase 
of its quantity. And if there may be at some 
time more than enough, the overplus will have no 
effect toward making tl\e currency as a cur- 
rency, of less value than when there was but 
enough, because such overplus will not be used 
in trade, but be some other way disposed of. 

If we inquire how much per cent interest 
ought to be required upon the loan of these bills, 
we must consider what is the natural standard 
of usury. And this appears to be, where the 



412 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

security is undoubted, at least the rent of so 
much land as the money lent will buy. For it 
cannot be expected that any man will lend his 
money for less than it would fetch him in as 
rent if he laid it out in land, which is the most 
secure property in the world. But if the 
security is casual, then a kind of insurance must 
be interwoven with the simple natural interest 
which may advance the usury very conscionably 
to any height below the principal itself. 

" Now, among us, if the value of land is 
twenty years' purchase, 5 per cent, is the just 
rate of interest for money lent on undoubted 
security. Yet, if money grows scarce in a coun- 
try, it becomes more difficult for the people to 
make punctual payments of what they borrow, 
money being hard to be raised; likewise, trade 
being discouraged and business impeded for want 
of currency, abundance of people must be in 
declining circumstances, and by these means 
security is more precarious than where money 
is plenty. On such aqcounts it is no wonder if 
the people ask a greater interest for their money 
than the natural interest, and what is above is to 
be looked upon as a kind of premium for the 
insurance of those uncertainties as they are 
greater or less. Thus we always see that where 
money is scarce interest is high, and low where 
it is plenty. Now, it is certainly the advantage 



AS A NATION. 413 

of a country to make interest as low as possible, 
as I have already shown, and this can be done in 
no other way than by making money plentiful, 
And since in emitting paper money among us 
the office has the best of security, the titles to 
the lands being all skillfully and strictly examined 
and ascertained, and as it is only permitting the 
people by law to coin their own land, which costs 
the government nothing, the interest being more 
than enough to pay the charges ot the printing, 
officers' fees, &c, I can not see any good reason 
why 4 per cent, to the loan office should not be 
thought fully sufficient. As a low interest may 
incline more to take money out, it will become 
more plentiful in trade, and this may bring down 
the common usury in which security is more dubi- 
ous to the pitch it is determined at by law. 

"If it should be objected that emitting it at so 
low an interest and on such easy terms will occa- 
sion more to be taken out than the trade of the 
country really requires, it may be answered that 
it has already been shown, there can never be 
so much of it emitted as to make it fall below 
the land it is founded on, because no man in his 
senses will mortgage his estate for what is of no 
more value to him than that he has mortffaeed, 
especially if the possession of what he receives 
is more precarious than of what he mortgages, 
as that of paper money is when compared to 



414 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

land. And if it should ever become so plenty 
by indiscreet persons continuing to take out a 
large overplus above what is necessary in trade, 
so as to make people imagine it would become 
by that means of less value than their mort- 
gaged lands, they would immediately, of course, 
begin to pay it in again to the office to redeem 
their land, and continue to do so till there was 
no more left in trade than was absolutely neces- 
sary. And thus the proportion would find itself 
(though they were a million too much in the 
office to be let out), without giving any one the 
trouble of calculation. 

It may perhaps be objected to what I have 
written concerning the advantages of a large 
addition to our currency that if the people of this 
province increase and husbandry is more 
followed we shall overstock the markets with 
our produce of flour, &c. To this it may be 
answered that we can never have too many 
people (nor too much money). For when one 
branch of trade or business is overstocked with 
hands there are the more to spare to be employed 
in another. So if raising wheat proves dull more 
may (if there is money to support and carry on 
new manufactures) proceed to the raising and 
manufacturing of hemp, silk, iron, and many 
other things the country is very capable of, for 



AS A NATION. 415 

which we only want people to work and money 
to pay them with. 

"Upon the whole, it maybe observed that it is 
the highest interest of a trading country in gen- 
eral to make money plentiful, and that it can be 
a disadvantage to none that have honest designs. 
It cannot hurt even the usurers, though it should 
sink what they receive as interest, because they 
will be proportionately more secure in what they 
lend, or they will have an opportunity of employ- 
ing their money to greater advantage to them- 
selves as well as to the country. Neither can it 
hurt those merchants who have great sums out- 
standing in debts in the country, and seem on 
that account to have the most plausible reason to 
fear it, to- wit: because a large addition being 
made to our currency will increase the demand 
of exporting produce, and by that means raise 
the price of it, so that they will not be able to 
purchase so much bread or flour for £100 when 
they shall receive it after such an addition as 
they now can and may if there is no addition I 
say it cannot hurt even such, because the) 7 will 
get in their debts just in exact proportion so 
much easier and sooner as the money becomes 
plentier; and, therefore, considering the interest 
and trouble saved, they will not be losers, because 
it only sinks in value as a currency proportionally 
as it becomes more plenty. It cannot hurt the 



41 6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

interest of great Britain, as has been shown, and 
it will greatly advance the interest of the pro- 
prietor. It will be an advantage to every indus- 
trious tradesman, etc., because his business will 
be carried on more freely and trade be universally 
enlivened by it. And as more business in all manu- 
factures will be done by so much as the labor 
and time spent in exchange is saved, the country 
in general will grow so much the richer. 

"It is nothing to the purpose to object the 
wretched falls of the bills in New England and 
South Carolina, unless it might be made evident 
that their currency was emitted with the same 
prudence and on such good security as ours is>. 
and it certainly was not. 

u As this essay is wrote and published in haste,, 
and the subject in itself intricate, I hope I shall 
be censured with candor if, for want of time 
carefully to revise what I have written, in some 
places I should appear to have expressed myself 
too obscurely and in others am liable to object- 
ions I did not foresee. I sincerely desire to be 
acquainted with the truth, and on that account 
shall think myself obliged to any one who will 
take the pains to show me or the public where I 
am mistaken in my conclusions. And as we alL 
know there are among us several gentlemen of 
acute parts and profound learning who are very 
much against any addition to our money, it were 



AS A NATION. 417 

to be wished that they would favor the country 
with their sentiments on this head in print, which, 
supported with truth and good reasoning, may 
probably be very convincing. 

"And this is to be desired the rather oecause 
many people, knowing the abilities of those gen- 
tlemen to manage a good cause, are apt to 
construe their silence in this as an argument of a 
bad one. Had anything of that kind ever yet 
appeared perhaps I should not have given the 
public this trouble. But as those ingenious gen- 
tlemen have not yet (and I doubt never will) 
think it worth their concern to enlighten the 
minds of their erring countrymen in this partic- 
ular, I think it would be highly commendable in 
every one of us more fully to bend our minds to 
the study of what is the true interest of Pennsyl- 
vania, whereby we may be enabled not only to 
reason pertinently with one another, but, if 
occasion requires, to transmit home such clear 
representations as must inevitably convince our 
superiors of the reasonableness and integrity of 
our designs." 

Gillett's comments — 

" The assembly of Pennsylvania were so influenced 
by the above article, that the measures proposed by it 
were soon adopted. 

"The following description of the system established 
is taken from Pownall's Administration of the Colonies, 
fourth edition, pages 234-236: 



41 8 . WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

'As the paper money act made and passed in Penn- 
sylvania in 1739 was tne completest of the kind, con- 
taining all the improvements which experience had 
from time to time suggested in the execution of pre- 
ceding acts, an account of that act will best explain 
and recommend the measure contained in the following 
proposal: 

' The sum of the notes by that act directed to be 
printed was ;£ 80,000 proclamation money. This money 
was to be emitted to the several borrowers from a loan 
office established for that purpose. 

' Five persons were nominated trustees of the loan 
office, under whose care and direction the bills or notes 
were to be printed and emitted. 

1 To suit the bills for a common currency they were 
of small and various denominations, from twenty shill- 
ings down to one shilling. 

' Various precautions were taken to prevent counter- 
feits, by peculiarities in the paper, character, manner 
of printing, signing, numbering, etc. 

' The trustees took an oath and gave security for the 
due and faithful execution of their office. 

4 They were to lend out the bills on real security of 
at least double the value for a term of sixteen years to 
be repaid in yearly quotations or installments, with 
interest. Thus one sixteenth part of the principal was 
yearly paid back into the office, which made the pay- 
ment easy to the borrower. The interest was applied 
to public services ; the principal during the first ten 
years let out again to fresh borrowers. 

' The borrowers, from year to year, were to ..ave the 
money only for the remaing part of the term of sixteen 
years, repaying by fewer and of course proportionately 
larger installments, and during the last six years of the 
sixteen the sums paid in were not emitted, but the 



AS A NATION. 419 

notes burnt and destroyed, so that at the end of the 
sixteen years the whole might be called in and burnt, 
and the accounts completely settled. 

' The trustees were taken from all the different coun- 
ties of the province, their residence in different parts 
giving them better opportunities of being acquainted 
with the value and circumstances of estates offered in 
mortgage. 

'They were to continue but four years in office, were 
to account annually to committees of assembly, and at 
the expiration of that term they were to deliver up all 
moneys and securities in their hands to their success- 
ors before their bonds and securities could be dis- 
charged. 

4 Lest a few wealthy persons should engross the 
money, which was intended for more general benefit, 
no one person, whatever security he might offer, could 
borrow more than ^100. 

' Thus numbers of poor new settlers were accommo- 
dated and assisted with money to carry on their settle- 
ments, to be repaid in easy portions yearly as the 
yearly produce of their lands should enable them/ 
Gillett's comments — 

1 For fifty years the paper-money system or the issue 
by the colonial government of legal tender ' proclama- 
tion money,' as it was at first called, and afterward 
*' resolve money,' was continued with marvelous 
results. This money bore no promise of redemption in 
coin, but a promise to receive it for all dues. It never 
was redeemed in coin. It rested upon the credit of the 
tax-payers and wealth producers of Pennsylvania, and 
was loaned to the extent of the demand, Upon land and 
plate — not to bankers, not to corporations in immense 
sums, but to farmers and business men, in sums not 
exceeding ^£100. Phillips' Paper Currency, a book 



42 O WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

published in 1765, opposed to paper money, says on 
page 36: * No great fluctuations are recorded in this 
province (Pennsylvania).' The money was so good it 
circulated in neighboring provinces as at home. 
The volume was governed by the necessities of indi- 
viduals and of the public, and was always sustained in 
value by taxation. 

'There were thirty-five issues of this money either to 
redeem old issues or supply the demand for increased 
circulation, and so universally was this system com- 
mended by the wonderful developments and prosperity 
of Pennsylvania that it conquered all opposition. Even 
Englishmen were forced to approve it, and Pennsyl- 
vania was made an exception to the law of Parliament 
prohibiting the issue of paper money in the Colonies, 
passed in 1751. But for paper money this country 
never could have acquired the resources necessary to 
enable it to cope with England and overcome her in 
the revolutionary war. 

11 In 1759 there were nearly ^385,000 circulation of 
'proclamation money,' immense sum for those days 
and for a single colony. The population of Pennsyl- 
vania with Delaware was estimated at one hundred 
and ninety-five thousand in 1754. (Bancroft's History 
of the United States, vol. 3, p. 91.) Benjamin Frank- 
lin received the gratitude of the people for his efforts 
to establish the system. His article quoted above 
caused its origin, and he was the architect. The 
richest men in Philadelphia sought the office of signers 
of these bills to gratify their pride. 

" Thomas Pownal, M. P., of England, who had served 
the Crown as governor and commander-in-chief of the 
provinces of Massachusetts and North Carolina, and 
also as lieutenant-governor of New Jersey, in a book 
written by him on the Administration of the Colonies, 



AS A NATION. 42 I 

published in London in 1768, says, on page 185, after 
condemning a proposed plan for a provincial bank: 
' I will recommend to the consideration of those who 
take a lead in business, a measure devised and admin- 
istered by an American Assembly, and I will venture to 
say that there never was a wiser or better measure, 
never one better calculated to serve the uses of an 
increasing country, and there never was a measure 
more steadily pursued or more faithfully executed 
for forty years together than the loan office in Pennsyl- 
vania, formed and administered by the assembly of 
that province. 

* In a country under such circumstances money lent 
upon interest to settlers creates money. Paper money 
thus lent upon interest will create gold and silver prin- 
cipal, while the interest becomes a revenue that pays 
the charge of the government. This currency is the 
true Pactolean stream which converts all into gold that 
is washed by it. It is on this principle that the wisdom 
and virtue of the assembly of Pennsylvania established, 
under the sanction of government, an office for the 
remission of paper money by loan." 

Gillett's comments — 

11 It was universally accepted and regarded as an 
axiom by our colonial fathers, that it was not only the 
right, but the duty, of the government to provide the 
people with a sufficient supply of money for the wants 
of trade, 

" Dr. Franklin gave this account in his autobiography 
of the introduction of his system in Pennsylvania : 

"About this time (1723) there was a cry among the 
people for more paper money, only ^15,000 being- 
extant in the province and that soon to be sunk. The 



422 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

wealthy inhabitants opposed any addition, being 
against all paper currency. 

" I was on the side of an addition, being persuaded 
that the first small sum, struck in 1722 had done much 
good by increasing the trade, employment and number 
of inhabitants in the province, since I now saw all the 
old houses inhabited and many new ones building, 
whereas I remembered well when I first walked about 
the streets of Philadelphia (eating my roll), I saw many 
of the houses in Walnut street, between Second and 
Front streets, with bills on their doors, * to let,' and 
many likewise in Chestnut street and other streets 
which made me think the inhabitants of the city were 
one after another deserting it. Our debates possessed 
me so fully of the,subject that I wrote and printed an 
anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled, " The Nature and 
Necessity of a Paper Currency." (Quoted above.) 

' It was well received by the common people in gen- 
eral, but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and 
strengthened the clamor for more money, and they, 
happening to have no writers among them that were 
able to answer it, the opposition slackened, and the 
point was carried by a majority in the House. 
The utility of this currency became by time and experi- 
ence so evident that the principles upon which it was 
founded were never afterward much disputed, so that 
it grew soon to £55,000, and in 1739 to £80,000, trade, 
building and inhabitants all the while increasing, 
though I now think there are limits beyond which the 
quantity may be hurtful.' 

Gillett's comments — 

' Dr. Franklin never changed his convictions as to 
the necessity and utility of government legal tender 
paper money system for America. At the age of fifty- 



AS A NATION. 423 

eight years he went before a committee of Parliament 
to answer a report of the board of trade, dated Feb- 
ruary 9, 1764, containing reasons for restricting the 
issue of paper bills of credit in America 'as a legal 
tender,' and in his unanswerable argument against the 
restriction, he said: 

' If carrying out all the gold and silver ruins the 
country, every colony was ruined before it made paper 
money. But far from being ruined by it, the colonies that 
have made use of paper money have been and are all in 
a thriving condition. 

' Pennsylvania, before it made any paper money, was 
totally stripped of its gold and silver, though they had 
from time to time, like the neighboring colonies, agreed 
to take gold and silver coins at higher nominal 
values, in hopes of drawing money into and retain- 
ing it for the internal uses of the province ; . . . 
but this practice of increasing the denomination was 
found not to answer the end. 



' The difficulties for want of cash were accordingly 
very great, the chief part of trade being carried on by 
the extremely inconvenient method of barter ; when, in 
1723, paper money was first made there, which gave 
new life to business, promoted greatly the settlement of 
new lands (by lending small sums to beginners on easy 
interest, to be paid in installments), whereby the prov- 
ince has so greatly increased in inhabitants that the 
export from hence thither is now more than tenfold 
what it then was, and by their trade with foreign colo- 
nies they have been able to obtain great quantities of 
gold and silver to remit hither in return lor the manu- 
factures of this country." 



424 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Gillett's comments — Speaking of the price of 
coin in paper money, Dr. Franklin says: 

1 On the emission of first paper money, a difference 
soon arose between that and silver ; the latter having a 
property the former had not, a property always in 
demand in the colonies, to-wit: its being fit for a 
remittance. This property having soon found its value 
by the merchants bidding on one another for it, and a 
dollar thereby coming to be rated at eight shillings in 
paper in New York>and js. 6d. in Pennsylvania, it has 
continued uniformly at those rates in both provinces, 
now nearly forty years, though in Pennsylvania the 
paper currency has at times increased from £ 15,000, 
the first sum to ^60,000, or near it. Nor has any 
alteration been occasionecLby the paper money in the 
price of the necessaries of life when compared with 
silver. 

In summing up the case, Dr. Franklin says: 

1 On the whole, no method has hitherto been formed 
to establish a medium of trade, in lieu of money (coin), 
equal in all its advantages to bills of credit, founded 
on sufficient taxes for discharging it, or on land security 
of double the value for repaying it at the end of the 
term, and in the meantime made a general legal tender. 
The experience of now nearly half a century in the 
middle colonies has convinced them of it, among them- 
selves, by the increase of their settlements, numbers, 
general buildings, improvements, agriculture, shipping, 
and commerce, and the same experience has satisfied 
the British merchants who trade thither that it has 
been greatly useful to them, and not in a single instance 
prejudicial.' 



AS A NATION. 425 

Gillett's comments — 

" The Pennsylvania legal tender paper money system, 
like that of her sister colonies that had adopted it, in 
whole or in part, was overthrown by the Revolutionary 
war. The Continental Congress was powerless to levy and 
collect duties and taxes, and could not even make its 
money a legal tender, but was compelled to appeal to 
the colonies to do it. The colonies were already sup- 
plied with paper money, and the vast influx of conti- 
nental bills (and of counterfeits put out by the English), 
with no proportionate tax to call them back, issued by 
a helpless congress struggling for life with the mightiest 
nation in the world, forced them down, and with 
them the colonial bills, also greatly increased, to pur- 
chase the munitions of war. Notwithstanding this, we 
owe to paper money the independence of the United 
States from Great Britain as absolutely as we owe the 
preservation of the Union in the recent struggle to the 
greenback. 

Franklin afterward said, in an article on the 
paper money in the United States: 

"When great Britain commenced the present war 
upon the colonies they had neither arms nor ammuni- 
tion, nor money to purchase them, or pay soldiers. 
The new government had not immediately the consist- 
ence necessary for collecting heavy taxes ; nor would 
taxes that could be raised within the year during peace 
have been sufficient for a year's expense in time of 
war; they therefore printed a quantity of paper bills 
each expressing to be the value of a certain number of 
Spanish dollars, from one to thirty. With these they 
paid, clothed, and fed their troops ; fitted out ships 
and supported the war during five years against one of 
the most powerful nations of Europe." 



426 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

I had thought to follow the foregoing quota- 
tion from the great philosopher, with comments 
upon each proposition, but I now see no necessity 
for it. There it is as plain as language can 
make it, and a complete vindication of my 
theory it is. The arguments in support of the 
proposition that the government can safely and 
profitably issue money to the people were found 
to be unanswerable when put before the colony 
of Pennsylvania by Dr. Franklin. And although 
that system of money met with the same 
bitter opposition from Shylock that it does 
now, fifty years of practice proved that the 
theory was founded in true philosophy: And 
now, instead of being before the country 
with a visionary scheme of some unre- 
flecting mind, asking to have a dangerous ex- 
periment tried, I am asking that the govern- 
ment adopt a system of finance, introduced by 
one of the wisest statesmen any age has pro- 
duced, and the wisdom and beneficence of which 
system has been demonstrated by the experience 
of half a century. 

Republicans and Democrats, what better evi- 
dence do you want that there is an attempt 
to keep you ignorant, as regards the subject of 
finance, than that your papers have not published 
that bit of important history? With these facts 
before you, will you continue to read the old 



AS A NATION. 427 

party papers, accepting their jeers as arguments, 
or will you apply to these facts the test of your 
own common sense, and the light of history and 
experience ? 



428 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



LECTURE XII. 

ARTFUL METHODS BY WHICH THE PEOPLE HAVE 
BEEN MISLED WITH REGARD TO FINANCE. 



ARTFUL METHODS BY WHICH THE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MISLED 
WITH REGARD TO FINANCE— THE HONEST MONEY LEAGUE— 
THE MONEY POWERS RESUMPTION — THE MONEY OF THE WORLD 
—IS GOLD A STANDARD OF VALUE— HONEST MONEY LEAGUES 
DELUSIVE STATEMENT WITH REGARD TO A DEBASED CUR- 
RENCY — TRUE STATEMENTS OF THE HONEST MONEY LEAGUE 
—SENATOR HOWE ON OUR STANDARD OF VALUE. 



Permit me, before I proceed to discuss further 
the principles of financial legislation which, in 
my judgment, will give this country continued 
prosperity, to call your attention to some of 
the appliances, which the money power is using, 
to delude the people into the support of their 
systems of legalized robbery. 

The following, from a circular issued by the 
National Banking Association, and sent to every 
national bank in the United States, explains 
itself, and throws light on some other subjects, 
which, undoubtedly, seem dark and obscure to 
many who have not studied the finance question. 
Read it, and you will see why the people do not 
understand the finance question: 



AS A NATION. 429 

" Dear Sir : It is advisable to do all in your power to 
sustain such daily and weekly newspapers, especially 
the agricultural and religious press, as will oppose the 
issuing of greenback paper money, and that you also 
withhold patronage or favors from all applicants who 
are not willing to oppose the government issue of 
money. Let the government issue the coin (only two 
and a half per cent of the circulation) and the banks 
issue the paper money of the country, for then we can 
better protect each other. 

" To repeal the law creating national banks or to 
restore to circulation the government issue of money, 
will be to provide the people with money, and will, 
therefore, seriously affect your individual profits as 
bankers and lenders. 

" See your member of Congress at once, and engage 
him to support our interest, that we may control legis- 
lation." 

Here is the key to the situation. The leading 
papers, as I have before shown, are rich, and are, 
therefore, directly interested in dear money and 
cheap commodities; and the minor newspapers 
are, as a rule, taken care of according to the 
advice given in the circular just quoted. And, 
then, the individual profits of bankers and lenders 
would be seriously affected should the govern- 
ment issue money instead of the banks, and this 
the bankers understand, as is seen by the language 
of their circular. 

Is it a wonder, then, that bankers and lenders 
oppose the government issue of money? 



430 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Should the government loan money to the 
people, the interest now paid to banks would be 
paid to the government, and the bankers' profit 
would be gone, and bankers are no more willing 
to see their business destroyed than any other 
class of business men are to see theirs destroyed. 

I will here say that the banks do not deny 
issuing the circular here referred to. On the 
contrary, I have an instance in mind, where 
a citizen of Minnesota, said to a banker, that 
there was to be a lecture on Friday evening of that 
week, in which that circular would be read to 
the audience, and invited him to be present and 
deny it. The banker looked him in the eye, 
and said: " It is true and what are you going to 
do about it?" 

It will be noticed that the circular makes no 
mention of the interest of the government, or 
people, or anything but the bankers and lenders; 
their interests are alone discussed. Well that 
was all that was necessary. The circular was 
not intended for general distribution, and the 
authors did not need to use deceptive language to 
accomplish the purpose intended. 

THE HONEST MONEY LEAGUE. 

But here is a circular issued by the Honest 
Money League of the Northwest, which of course 



AS A NATION. 43 1 

was expected to find its way into more general 
circulation. 

Notice the difference in both the language and 
sentiment. Here the Shylocks pretend to be 
deeply interested in the public welfare, and would 
have us believe that they want honest money for 
honesty's sake: For they are now after the 
people's votes. The circular is as follows: 

Chicago, 111., Nov. 1874. — The result of the late 
elections has practically secured the return to specie 
payments, on the part of the tfnited States government. 
The fiat money project, if not dissipated and perma- 
nently consigned to the limbo of vanity, has at least 
been put beyond the power to do harm for two years or 
more to come. 

But the work of the Honest Money League is not 
thereby ended. The advocates of irredeemable and 
debased currency are already seeking to occupy new 
grounds of attack upon the credit and business inter- 
ests of this nation. New schemes are incubating to 
prevent the people of the United States enjoying the 
blessing of a currency, convertible on demand into the 
money of the world. New designs and new combina- 
tions are being perfected by demagogues to deceive 
the people, by false statements and delusive arguments, 
and the Honest Money League has still a duty to per- 
form in counteracting these dangerous intentions, with 
clear statement of fact and plain reasoning. 

" During the eight months of its existence, the league 
lias abundantly proved that the American people can 
be greatly influenced by the dissemination of correct 
information concerning questions of public policy. 



432 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" The league has done its work cheaply. It has printed 
and circulated 150,000 pamphlets, which have been 
used as text books by speakers and writers in all parts 
of the country. 

" It has furnished matter for at least one million 
campaign documents. 

" It has inspired innumerable newspaper articles. 

" It has been directly instrumental in the holding of 
several hundred public meetings. 

" It has perfected an organization through which the 
attention of the people can be readily gained. 

" The business interests of the country demand that 
these means shall continue to be used, to secure and 
maintain a currency redeemable in the money of com- 
merce ; and, to this end, the league still asks the 
encouragement, co-operation and support of the friends 
of Honest Money in all parts of the Union. 

" M. Le Scudder, Jr., 
" Chairman Executive Committee." 

The foregoing circular contains some truth 
and some false insinuations, both of which are 
useful to me at this time. For example, the 
shallow pretense that the American people were 
to be blessed with a paper currency convertible 
into specie, or the money of the world — or the 
money of commerce, as they deceptively use the 
term — is useful to me here, inasmuch as it shows 
the baseness af the men who wrote the circular; 
for well they know that our paper currency is 
is not practically convertable into specie. 

Have I not shown that clearly in another lee- 



AS A NATION. 433 

ture? Can they point to a single period in our 
history when the paper currency of the coun- 
try was convertible into specie? And is the 
basis any larger now than at former periods? 
Is the proportion of specie to paper likely to 
average larger for the next fifty years to come 
than it has during the fifty years last past? 



But should I admit, for argument sake, that 
which is not true, viz : That there is specie 
enough in the treasury to redeem our paper cur- 
rency, dollar for dollar, even then, their theory 
would not be sound. For, supposing you take 
one thousand dollars in greenbacks to the treas- 
ury and exchange them for gold eagles, now you 
have one hundred, ten dollar, gold pieces. But 
how much gold value have you received ? Only 
nine hundred dollars. For our gold eagles, 
as they are called, are only nine-tenths gold. 
Where is your honest dollar when you are thus 
one hundred dollars short, according to the 
theory of the bullionist? 

Should you get your one thousand dollar 
greenback redeemed in standard silver dollars, 
you would be two hundred dollars worse off 3-et ; 
for our standard silver dollar is worth about 
twenty dollars less on the hundred as bullion 



434 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

than our gold dollar. In that case you would 
receive only seven hundred dollars, for your one 
thousand dollar greenback. You are now short 
three hundred dollars. How is that for the hon- 
est money league's honest dollar! 

The pretense, that they want to secure an 
honest money for the people, is a sham and a 
fraud, as the above analysis shows. The 
control of the currency is what they are after. 

THE MONEY OF THE WORLD. 

Their talk about converting our currency into 
the money of the world, is equally dishonest and 
delusive. For well they know, there is no such 
thing as the " money of the world r — or com- 
merce, in the sense in which they use the term — - 
Our gold and silver dollar has no money value in 
England — it has only a bullion value there. 
Neither is the money of England money in the 
United States ; and we are not obliged to receive 
it in payment of debts. Money being a creation of 
law, loses its money power, when it goes beyond 
the boundary line of the country that made it 
money. In our dealings with Europe, we do not 
use our gold and silver as money, but as bullion. 
They weigh it, and it goes for what it is worth 
as bullion. In other words it sells in market as a 
commodity, the same as wheat or corn and not 



AS A NATION. 435 

otherwise. It has no debt paying power there, 
nor any value except a commodity value, which 
varies, as Dr. Franklin has shown, the same as 
corn or wheat. So much for the money of the 
world. 

IS GOLD A STANDARD OF VALUE. 

" But," says one, " the precious metals are the 
world's standard of value, and of course every- 
thing else must conform to that standard: so 
what difference does it make, whether you call 
it the world's money, or the world's standard of 
value, which it is?" Well, I will not say that it 
makes any difference which you call it, if you 
will insist upon calling it one or the other; but it 
is very incorrect to call it either. Can you imagine 
how anything can be standard of value, whose 
own value is continually changing? I have 
shown the part which the varying price of gold 
was made to play, in the great scheme of rob- 
bery, which swindled the people during and 
since the war, out of more money than the war 
cost. But as I am now speaking of the impossi- 
bility of gold being a standard of value, I will 
quote a few more authorities to fortify my posi- 
tion on that particular point. Heath, in his 
" Labor and Finance Revolution," quotes from 
E. P. Elder, in his work on political economy, as 
follows : 



436 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

11 Money is no more a standard of value, of the things 
exchanged, than is any other commodity." 

Adam Smith, the very celebrated writer on 
political economy, in speaking of the precious 
metals says : 

" Constantly varying in their own value, they can 
never be made an accurate measure of the value of 
other commodities." 

Colwell, in his " Ways and Means of Pay- 
ment," speaks as follows: 

"Another attribute, generally given to the precious 
metals, is that they are a standard of value. 

" This is inaccurate. 

11 Gold cannot, in the mint, be made the standard for 
silver, nor can silver be made the standard for gold. 
Much less, taking the whole range of articles for human 
vconsumption, can they be made a standard of value 
to which all can be referred. The term ' standard ' is, 
then, inaccurately applied, when it is used with any 
signification. If gold is a standard at all, it is a stand- 
ard of payment, but not of value." 

Of course gold can be made a standard of 
payment, the same as paper or nickel, but not a 
standard of value. To say that gold is a 
standard of value is to say that the twenty-five 
and eight-tenths grains contained in our dollar 
will purchase a given quantity of wheat or pork; 
and that, too, without variation from year to 



AS A NATION. 437 

year, which we know it will not do. Value is an 
ideal thing, and can not be determined by any 
standard. 

To illustrate: I own a farm, which I value at 
twenty-five hundred dollars. You desire to 
purchase it,but you value it at only two thousand 
dollars. Now, is there any standard by which 
we can measure the real value of that farm as 
we can measure corn or potatoes? Not at all ; 
because value is purely ideal. 

Your judgment as to the value of the farm is 
made up from what comfort and profit you think 
it will bring to you. The value I have in my 
mind is based upon considerations which would 
have, perhaps, very little weight with you; but 
they have fixed the value in my mind at twenty- 
five hundred dollars, while, in your mind, the 
value remains at two thousand. Now, what 
shall we do? 

Why, if you have a standard or measure of 
value, there need be no delay in settling the 
matter. We will get the standard and measure 
it; that will remove all doubts. 

" Well," Shy lock says, " gold is the standard 
the world over." 

Well, I take the gold, and you watch to see if 
I measure correctly. 

I say, " Here is five hundred dollars." 

"Yes; well?" 



438 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

il Here is another five hundred — which makes a 
thousand — and here is another five hundred — 
which makes fifteen hundred — and here is another 
five hundred — which makes two thousand — and 
here is another five hundred, which makes 
twenty-rive hundred. So, you see, the value of 
my farm is just twenty-five hundred dollars by 
actual measurement. " 

Now, have I settled anything by that process 
— have I measured the value of the farm? 
Certainly not, according to your idea. I have 
expressed my opinion by the act, but your mind 
remains the same as before; and you say to me: 
" The fact that you have counted down twenty- 
five hundred dollars does not prove to me that 
your farm is worth that amount of money; my 
idea of its value is unchanged. Do you not see 
that the value is an ideal thing, and can- 
not be measured by any standard? Now, 
if it were the size of the farm or the number of 
bushels contained in a pile of wheat, that was in 
controversy, we could settle it quickly, because 
those are measurable things, and we have a 
standard measure. If, after you had seen it 
measured, should the result be different from 
what you had anticipated, you would be forced 
to change your mind in conformity to the fact 
established by a standard which you know to be 
correct; but your idea of the value of your 



AS A NATION. 439 

property cannot be changed by any measure- 
ment which can be made with money. To 
further illustrate, suppose we agree to split the 
difference, as it is called, and you pay me twenty- 
two hundred and fifty dollars for my farm, what 
does the twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars 
do? Does it measure the value of the farm? 
Not at all; it only expresses the sum which I 
have agreed to take — it did not fix its value. 
My next neighbor might still believe the real 
value of the. farm to be three thousand dollars, 
instead of the twenty-two hundred and fifty, 
which I had received. And you might summon 
a hundred men, and probably not another one 
would decide that twenty-two hundred and fifty 
dollars was the exact measure of the value of 
my farm. Money can express the sum agreed 
upon, but you can no more measure values with 
money, than you can measure a dream with a 
broomstick. 

The Supreme Court of the United States looks 
upon the subject in the same light. In the 
famous test case, before cited, the court used the 
following language: 

11 It is hardly correct to speak of a standard value. 
The constitution does not speak of it. It contemplates 
a standard for that which has gravity or extension ; but 
value is an ideal thing. The coinage acts fix its unit, 
as a dollar ; but the gold or silver thing we call a dollar 



44° WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

is, in no sense, a standard of a dollar — it is the repre- 
sentative of it."— 12th Wallace Supreme Court Reports, 
Page 553. 

Of course, the supreme court understands that 
twenty-five and eight-tenth grains of gold, which 
we call a dollar, is in no sense a standard of a 
dollar, but a representative of it. 

To illustrate: I sell a piece of land for one 
hundred dollars, and take my pay in gold. Every 
dollar represents a dollar's worth of land; but 
every dollar is not a standard of a dollar's worth 
of land; for, if it was, the value of the land 
would always remain at one hundred dollars: 
but its value may change within the next year, 
so that it will require two hundred dollars to 
represent its value. Hence, we feel the force of 
the remark of the supreme court — " That the 
constitution does not speak of a standard of value, 
because it is an ideal thing " — but does contem- 
plate a " standard for that which has gravity or 
extension." For example: feet, rods and miles 
can be made a correct and never-varying stand- 
ard for the measurement of land or distance, for 
the reason that we can agree upon the number 
of feet that shall be contained in a rod, and the 
number of rods that shall be contained in a mile, 
or an acre, and enact the standard so agreed 
upon into law, and the measurement of land 
must conform to that law. These measures 



AS A NATION. 44 1 

have now become by law a fixed and unvarying 
standard, by which the exact distance from one 
point to another, or the quantity of land lying in 
a certairl region of country, can, at all times, be 
correctly ascertained — because one rod will 
always contain the same number of feet. 

But how can we measure the value of land 
with mone}'? 

Can we say that the value of a given quantity 
of land shall always be contained in one hundred 
dollars, whether those dollars contain one or a 
thousand grains of gold? 

A linear rod will always represent i6}4 linear 
feet, and a square rod will cover or measure that 
amount of land every year, and every day in the 
year; but the dollar that will cover or represent 
the value of that amount of land to-day may not 
cover or represent one-half its value to-morrow. 

We can fix a standard for the measurement of 
wheat; we can say that sixty pounds shall be 
sold for a bushel. But can we say that sixty 
pounds shall be sold for a dollar? A dollar may 
represent sixty pounds this year and one hundred 
and twenty the next. 

I have now placed before }'ou the very highest 
authority that exists on the subject of money — 
that of the most learned writers on the science 
of money and government, and the wise judges 
of the United States Supreme Court — together 



44 2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

with arguments and illustrations which I know 
cannot be controverted, to prove that it is impos- 
sible for any kind of money to be made a standard 
of value to which all commodities can be referred. 
But had those learned men never written it ; or 
had the framers of the constitution not acquiesced 
by not contemplating a standard for value, in that 
immortal instrument, or had the wise judges of 
the Supreme Court never uttered a word upon 
the subject, I have facts at hand which will 
forever set the question at rest. The definition 
of the word standard relates directly to the 
subject under consideration. Webster defines it 
to mean " rule or criterion by which things are 
measured or judged. Serving as a text or 
criterion." Now, it is plain that, if gold is the 
" text or criterion " by which the value of all 
commodities is governed, the price of commodi- 
ties must always correspond to that of gold, for 
it cannot vary from its governor, or else the 
governor is no governor. Now, let us see: 
during the year 1862 the price of gold went up 
from $1.00 to $1.37, but the price of flour went 
down from $5.50 to $5.47. Where was your 
governor, Mr. Shylock? In 1862, when gold 
was worth $1.37 beef was worth $12.00. In 
1863 gold had gone up to $1.72 1-2, but beef 
paying no attention to the criterion, remained at 
$12.00. In 1864 gold was worth as high as 



AS A NATION. 443 

$2.85 1-2 and flour was worth $630. Here the 
price of gold had doubled more than once and 
one-half, while the price of flour had increased 
only about one-seventh. In 1865 gold had fallen 
from $2.85 1-2 to $1.46 1-2, but flour had gone 
up from $6.30 to $9.72. Where was the 
standard? In 1864, when gold was worth $2.85 
1-2, beef was worth $13.25. In 1865, when 
gold was falling from $2.85 1-2 to $1.46 1-4, 
beef was going up from $13.25 to $20.00. 

Where was Shylocks test to which all com- 
modities are referred. The above statistics 
of the price of flour and beef were compiled by 
W. Kimball, of New Haven, Conn., and they 
also appeared in the New York Tribune 
Almanac. 

Now, what becomes of the standard of value for 
commodities ? Does it not disappear in the light 
of these figures? Sometimes, when gold went 
up, commodities went up; at other times, when 
gold went up, commodities went down. The 
price of gold was being sent up and down by the 
gamblers of Wall street, while the price of com- 
modities was being regulated by supply and 
demand, with no more reference to gold, as a 
standard, than to the northwest wind. Now, it 
has cost Shylock many dollars for printer's ink, 
to make people believe that gold is the standard 



444 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of value. But history, common sense and expe- 
rience stamps the pretense as false. 

The foregoing statistics demonstrate that the 
supreme court was right in saying that " gold is 
in no sense a standard value." But it can be 
made a standard of payment, the same as tobacco, 
coon skins, bullets, etc., used to be made a legal 
tender for debt, or, which is the same thing, a 
standard of payment. 

The idea that gold is a standard of value for 
other commodities is a relic of barbarism. It is 
a child of a darker age than this. A truer 
education is dissipating the foolish notion, as it is 
the nonsensical idea, that there must be intrinsic 
value in money. 

One more delusive statement in the circular, 
issued by "the honest money league," I will 
notice; it is this: 

" The advocates of an irredeemable and debased 
currency are seeking to occupy new grounds," etc, 

Now, how came there to be a debased 
currency? The gold gamblers brought it about 
at the expense of honest toil, and made them- 
selves rich by it. 

Have I not shown that it was done by the 
bankers operating upon the Senate until it 
changed Stevens' bill, which would have made 
the greenback a full legal tender, and would, 



AS A NATION. 445 

thereby, have cut off all chance of speculating 
in gold, for the very good reason that nobody 
would, then, have been obliged to have gold? 

The money, which was made a full legal 
tender was not debased. 

Have I not shown, in another lecture, that that 
foul deed, of Shylock, cost the people about one- 
third of their earnings, and made the bankers 
rich? 

I have also given the testimony of Thaddeus 
Stevens, Henry Wilson, and others, in reference 
to the conduct of the money power, in connection 
with the amendments to that bill which debasad 
the greenback. But it will be well to add some 
more of the remarks of Mr. Stevens, when the 
bill came up for final action, February 20, 1862. 

In closing the debate, he said: 

" It is true there was a doleful sound came up from 
the caverns of the bullion brokers, and from the 
saloons of the associated banks. Their cashiers and 
agents were soon on the grounds, and persuaded the 
Senate with little deliberation to mangle and destroy 
what it had cost the House months to digest, consider 
and pass. They fell upon it in hot haste, and so dis- 
figured and deformed it that its very father would not 
know it.'' 

Mr. Stevens also said that the effect of the 
amendments to that bill, which made two kinds 
of money — " one for the banks and another for 



446 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the people " — was to rob the government, and 
make the " fortunes of bullionists in a single 
year." 

In 1863, Mr. Stevens made another effort to 
have the government receive the greenback for 
duties on imports; but the money sharks gath- 
ered their forces, and marched on Congress 
again. Seeing that he would be overwhelmed, 
he gave up the attempt. 

On that occasion, he spoke as follows 

"The bill which I introduced, some days since, to 
provide means to defray the expenses of the govern- 
ment, produced a howl among the money changers, as 
hideous as that sent forth by their Jewish cousins, 
when they were kicked out of the temple." 

Of course you will understand why there was 
such an excitement in money circles. Had the 
greenback been made receivable for duties, the 
importers would have used them for that purpose, 
instead of buying gold. That would have made 
the greenback as good as gold. But Shylock's 
business would have been ruined. He must keep 
the greenback debased, or he was out of a job. 

Judge Kelley, of Pennsylvania, in a speech 
delivered in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 
on the 15th day of January, 1876, in speaking of 
the effects of the exception clause, in the green- 
back, put there by the bankers to debase the 



AS A NATION. 447 

people's money, and create a market for gold 
said : 

" That crime perpetrated by the Senate of the United 
States, or that blunder, worse than a crime, has cost the 
American people more than all the war would have 
cost, had the House-bill been adopted as originally 
passed. That crime, or blunder, called into existence 
the gold room of New York. It invited from all the 
money centers of the world, their most voracious vam- 
pires to come here and fatten upon the life-blood of 
the American people. It converted commerce into a 
mere system of gambling, and made such creatures as 
Jay Gould and Jim Fisk possible in American history." 

Did not John Sherman, as chairman of the 
Finance Committee, say that the greenback cur- 
rency, was purposely debased, that it might be 
more readily invested in bonds, or words to that 
effect? 

Does not the pretence that we are advocating 
a debased currency, look ridiculous in the light 
of history, — which proves, beyond a doubt, not 
only that the opposite is true, but that the cur- 
rency was debased for purposes of speculation by 
the very class of men who wrote that circular, 
issued by the so-called " Honest Money League. " 

Have you any thought that any but monied 
men dictated that circular? — and can you imag- 
ine that a farmer or laboring man belongs to the 
falsely self-styled "Honest Money League?" 



448 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

So much of that circular, as I have quoted, is 
false, and worthy of its origin — worthy of men 
who could take advantage of the government in 
that awful hour of war and danger. 

The bankers did it, and they are the men who 
originated this circular. They so influenced leg- 
islation as to debase the greenback and invite 
the voracious " vampires, from the money 
centers of the world," to come and fatten on the 
life-blood of a sorrow-stricken people. 

Well they knew that the hour the greenback 
should be made a full legal tender, it wouid no 
longer be debased. The gold room in New York 
wouid close, and those " vampires," having 
nothing to feed upon, would be compelled to 
forage in lands already made desolate by their 
insatiate greed. But they opposed every measure 
looking to that end. They forced Thaddeus 
Stevens, and scores of other good men, to yield, 
although sorrowingly, to that which they knew 
would debase the currency, and bring great and 
lasting woe upon their country, and who, to use 
Mr. Stevens' own words, " yielded to save the 
country, in spite of the cupidity of its wealthier 
citizens." So much for the world's money, and 
a debased currency. 



AS A NATION. 449 

THE TRUE STATEMENT OF THE HONEST 
MONEY EEAGUE. 

Having now discussed that part of the circular 
which I said was useful, because it is false, I 
will proceed to discuss the part which is useful 
in this discussion, because it is true. 

The circular was originated for the purpose of 
closing the people's eyes. I will use it for the 
purpose of opening them. I have produced 
abundant evidence to satisfy any candid mind 
that the money power is controlling all the 
avenues of intelligence. Yet I have thought it 
well to present this circular, because it is a 
clincher, on that point; for it is the bankers' own 
admission, and must remove all doubt. It will 
be remembered that, at the time this circular 
was issued, the League had been in existence 
only eight months, and the officers were doing 
their work for nothing (what philanthropy!). 
Yet, in that short space of time they had printed 
and circulated " one hundred and fifty thousand 
pamphlets, which are used as text books by 
speakers and writers in all parts of the country." 

Now, farmers and laborers, you see where 
speakers get their thunder, do } T ou not? One 
hundred and fifty thousand books were fixed up T 
by the money power, and furnished them, free 
of charge. That number of pamphlets must 



4SO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

have cost considerable money; but then you 
know that Shy lock's patriotism does not stop to 
consider dollars and cents. 

" The League furnished matter for at least 
one million of campaign documents." It seems 
as though you might now understand how it was 
that you found good campaign literature at the 
post-office, every time you went after your mail, 
for two weeks before election. It was sent you 
by the money power. If those pamphlets cost 
them five cents apiece, there was another fifty 
thousand dollars without hope of reward. What 
patriotism ! 

But more yet: The circular declares they — 
the Leaguers — have " inspired innumerable news- 
paper articles." You now understand why it is 
that your newspapers lie to you so much on the 
subject of money, and keep that from you which 
you ought to know. Their articles are written 
by Shylock and his hirelings, and the editors 
paid to publish them. You can now understand 
how bad men are extolled, and good men 
berated; for the bad cater to that power, while 
the good refuse to be its slaves. It must have 
cost the " Honest League " a vast sum of money, 
indeed, to secure the publication of those innum- 
erable newspaper articles. 

Still more: The circular declares that the 
League has been directly instrumental in the 



AS A NATION. 45 I 

holding of several hundred public meetings; it 
has perfected an organization, through which the 
attention of the people can be readily gained. It 
must have cost the League heavily to get up 
those " several hundred public meetings." These 
startling facts, put forth in the interests of the 
bankers, ought to enable the people to under- 
stand why their orators scream resumption! gold 
standard! and honest money! Shylock pays 
them to do it. 

Now think: Was that not a stupenduous eight 
months' work? The circular declares that the 
business interests of the country demand that it 
shall be kept up. But, fellow-citizens, the authors 
of the circular do not intend, by business interest, 
the interest of the laborer and mechanic, the 
tradesman, the farmer and the merchant — they 
mean the interests of the bankers alone. 

Now, in view of the vast amount of -machinery 
and capital in operation since 1865 (and it is 
only the better employed by them for the pur- 
pose), is it any wonder that an unsuspecting 
people have been duped into willingness to help 
Shylock ridicule the idea of the government 
issuing money? Why, sir, for fifteen years a 
majority of the American people have, under 
just such inspiration, persecuted their friends 
without mercy, and upheld their enemies with- 
out stint or scruple, not knowing what the}' were 



452 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

doing? Such power have the monied interests 
wielded, through the press and rostrum, and even 
the pulpit, that the brightest intellects, sustained 
by pure lives of usefulness, and even great deeds 
of heroism, have found it impossible to make 
headway against it. Greeley and Sumner, ripe 
with years, and covered with laurels won with 
tongue and pen, inspired by an undying love of 
mankind, and a patriotism as lofty as heaven, 
found their political graves when they dared to 
hint that there was something wrong with the 
Grant dynasty. 

Toilers, every man and every woman who 
produce wealth, do } T ou not know that the 
money which paid for that " Honest League : * 
circular — for those pamphlets — for those innu- 
merable newspaper articles — for speaking talent 
and other expenses attending those hundreds of 
public meetings, was taken from you? Think 
what a vast amount it must have cost for those 
eight months, and what an incalculable sum from 
that time to the present! 

In view of this vast outlay, in time labor and 
money, made by that sindicate of bankers 
called the " Honest Money League," banded 
together for the furtherance of their own 
interests and the building up of their power, 
which this circular discloses, what, suppose you, 
are the real motives of the order, and what think 



AS A NATION. 453 

you of the pretences of its mouthpiece, the 
author of the circular? Such banding together, 
and such energy, in outlay and in action, can 
only point to one motive, and that motive is 
the consolidation of wealth and power in the 
hands of the syndicate, at the expense of the 
rights and interests of the people. When they 
proclaim these vast outlays of time and money, 
and in the same breath tell us their efforts must 
be continued and kept up, in the " business inter- 
ests of the country," we know they are not sin- 
cere, and seek only to blind and deceive the 
people. Think you the members of the league 
and the authors of the circular do not know the 
falsity and stupidity of their pretences? — that 
they do not know that specie, variant in its own 
value, cannot be made a standard of value for 
other commodities? Think you they do not 
know that, practically, there is no resumption 
for the people ? Think you they do not know 
that we have no fixed standard of value nor 
sound basis for our money? 

SENATOR HOWE ON OUR STANDARD OF VALUE. 

Can they be supposed to be ignorant of the 
utterances of one of their most distinguished par- 
tisans — a man of the highest authority among 
them — Senator Howe, of Wisconsin? I quote 



454 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

from his speech, from which I have previously 
quoted, delivered in Paris, before the commission 
of which he was a member sent by this govern- 
ment. He said : 

" Neither treasury nor bank has a note on the market 
which will not command coin on presentation. Still we 
have not found the staple standard which we sought. 
It no longer oscillates from the presence of a depre- 
ciated paper, but from the presence of DEPRECIATED 
COIN." 

Here we have the highest Republican author- 
ity in verification of my proposition, viz: That 
we have neither a stable basis nor an unvarying 
standard of value. And Senator Howe proves 
his assertion with reference to the relative value 
of silver to gold or gold to silver; for it makes 
no difference which way it is told, since it is the 
relative value that changes. He said: 

11 The trade of the world would readily adjust itself 
to any given ratio between the two metals, if that ratio 
could once be fixed. The difficulty is the ratio is not 
fixed. It is oscillating, it is sensitive, it is influenced 
not merely by the acts, but by the threats of every 
State. Look on the facts : That ratio fluctuated dur- 
ing the year 1878 between 17.14 to 1 and 19 to 1. In 
1877 the vibrations were less. In 1876 they were much 
greater. According to the director of the United States 
mint, the relative value at London in January was 16. 10 
to 1, and in July following it was 19.48 to 1. Such a 



AS A NATION. 455 

vibration must make trade giddy. Other authorities 
make the oscillation still greater. 

44 But we are told if silver went down gold went up, 
and ' how does that hurt the gold States?' they ask. 
Considered merely as owners of coin, that did not hurt 
them at all. But in the next six months the rates flew 
from 29.48 to 1 to 16.50 to 1. How did the gold own- 
ers enjoy that? This is a very narrow view, however, 
to take of the subject. We must not forget that it was 
the standard, by which commodities are valued, which 
underwent such violent oscillations. If quantity is to 
be measured by a standard, which alternately expands 
and contracts, what matter who holds the standard at 
any given point of time ? The great point is to sell 
when the measure is the smallest and to buy when it is 
largest. The standard of value is not applied in the 
same way as the standard of measure ; and so, it is 
true that oscillations in the former do not effect him 
who holds the standard, as well as all who buy and sell 
according to it. * # # Silver, as employed by the 
volunteers, does not determine values. On the con- 
trary, it confuses them. It reports one thing on one 
day and another on the day following." 

The above is copied, word for word, from Mr. 
Howe's speech, made at Paris last year, and, 
although much of it is weak — even childish — his 
admissions, with regard to the value of specie, are 
important, because he has proven them to be 
true, from the records, and they tally one for us. 

He has given the relative price of gold and 
silver, in 1876-8, his figures corresponding with 



45 6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

those given by the director of the United States 
mint. 

What does it prove ? 

Why, simply this: that, had you been in 
China, where silver is money and gold is not, and 
had wanted to purchase gold — well, we will say, 
for the purpose of presenting Gen. Grant with a 
medal for his bravery and disinterestedness in 
signing the bill doubling his own salary, against 
the spirit of the Constitution — if, I say, being in 
China, you had wished to purchase gold, you 
would, "of course, have been obliged to buy with 
silver — the money of China; and in January, 1876, 
one ounce of gold would have cost you only 
16 1-10 ounces of silver, according to the rates 
of the London market, while in July, only six 
months later, according to the same market, an 
ounce of gold would have cost you 19.48 ounces 
of silver, the price then being one-sixth greater 
than it had been in the January previous. 

As a resident of China, you would have said, 
the price of gold has raised more than one-sixth. 
But had you been in London, where gold is 
money and silver is not (for, bear in mind, that 
silver is not money in England, and gold is not 
money in China), and had desired to purchase 
silver in January, 1876 — well, say for the pur- 
pose of presenting Beecher with a medal, for his 
masterly effort on bread and water, as the work- 



AS A NATION. 457 

ing man's diet — you would have had to buy it 
with gold, the money of England. At that time 
you could have purchased only 16 i-io ounces of 
silver with one ounce of gold; but had you 
waited until July, six months Inter, your ounce of 
gold would have purchased 19 48-100 ounces of 
silver. As a resident of London, you would have 
said that the price of silver had fallen more than 
one-sixth since January. And you would be 
right in both cases: For the Chinaman could 
prove that the price of gold had raised by its 
having ascended in the scale of value, as related 
to the Chinese money; and the Englishman 
could prove that the price of silver had fallen, by 
its having descended in the scale of value, as 
related to money in England. The fact is, their 
relative value had changed. 

Now, here is the whole argument; for no 
sufficient reason can be given why, if their value 
changed relatively to each other, they should not 
change relatively to tin, iron, copper, corn or 
potatoes. The same facts and arguments which 
prove that the value ot silver changes, prove that 
the value of gold changes; and the conclusion is 
logical and irresistible, that specie cannot be 
made a reliable standard of value; and, there- 
fore, if used to purchase or exchange other com- 
modities, they must and will unsettle prices. 



45 8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



LECTURE XIII. 



THE REMEDY. 

THE REMEDY — THE PEOPLE'S FIRST DUTY— THE INCOME TAX — 
SHALL WE REPEAL THE REFUNDING LAWS— THE GOVERNMENT 
SHOULD NOT ISSUE BONDS — CROCKER'S BOND — THE DIFFER- 
ENCE IN THE COST TO THE PEOPLE OF THE GREENBACKS AND 
THE NATIONAL BANK CURRENCY— HORACE GREELEY ON THE 
NATIONAL BANKS— MONOPOLY OF MONEY ISSUE, ITS REMOVAL 
—COL. BLAND ON WHAT CONSTITUTES VALUE— HOW TO MAKE 
PAPER MONEY EXCHANGEABLE FOR SPECIE— THE ADVANTA- 
GES THAT WOULD ACCRL T E TO THE PEOPLE FROM THE GOVERN- 
MENT LOANING MONEY— TWO SYSTEMS OF LOANING MONEY, 
DIFFERENCE IN THE COST TO THE PEOPLE. 

When I commenced to arrange these lectures 
for publication, my purpose was to devote the 
latter half of the book to a discussion of a rem- 
edy, for the evils which I intended to point out r 
in the first half. But the work already extends 
far beyond the limits which I had fixed for it at 
the beginning. Then, too, when I come to con- 
sider the magnitude of the evils which afflict our 
bod) 7 politic, and trace them to their origin and 
begin to look for the remed} 7 , I find it opens a 
vast field for meditation and discussion. Indeed 
so vast that I feel the impossibility of doing the 
subject justice in a single volume. I have con- 



AS A NATION. 459 

eluded, therefore, to change my purpose, and to 
close this discussion with a hint at some of the 
remedies for the evils that afflict us, and a brief 
reference to the duty of the hour, leaving the 
more thorough discussion of the remedy for an- 
other work, which I intend to publish as a sequel 
to this. 

In my brief reference to the remedy, I would 
call the attention of the people to the following 
law which was considered and passed by the 
American congress in the early days of the Re- 
public, when the good of the people was the 
object of legislation. 

"Any person holding any office, or any stock in any 
institution of the nature of a bank for issuing or dis- 
counting bills, or *notes payable to bearer, or order, 
cannot be a member of this body, whilst he holds such 
office or stock." 

Think you our present Congress would pass 
such a law? That law is now upon statute book, 
signed by George Washington, in 1793. 

According to Moses W. Fields, M. C, our 
Congress is made up as follows: 

" One hundred and twenty bankers, ninety-nine law- 
yers, fourteen merchants, thirteen manufacturers, seven 
doctors, four mechanics and not a single farmer or day 
laborer." 

Much evil and suffering has been brought upon 



460 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the country, Fellow-citizens, by your own viola- 
tion of that wise law, passed for your protection. 
You have been electing bankers and bondholders 
to Congress to legislate on finance. What can 
you expect when you send the wolves to guard 
the lambs? 

They have legislated to make your property 
low and theirs high, by contracting the currency, 
when it was just adequate to the business of the 
country. They have imposed burdens upon you by 
legislating the currency of the country into inter- 
est-bearing bonds, and relieving the bondholders of 
their share of taxation by making them non- 
taxable; and, to crown the villainy, they have 
made those bonds, given for paper currency, 
payable in gold. 



Your first duty is to elect a different class of 
men to Congress — men whose interests are the 
people's interests. 

But, you say, " they will go back on us, after 
they are elected." 

They dare not be false to } T ou, when they 
know you understand what you want, and 
demand that it shall be granted to you. 

The trouble has been the people have not 
asked their representatives t<? do differently. 



AS A NATION. 46 1 

The Congressmen have been able to make them 
believe that everything was all right. 

The first duty of the people is to know what 
principles they want their representatives to sus- 
tain, and then embody them in a platform, and 
elect their candidates, with instructions to vote 
for them, and when one fails to vote for those 
principles or resign, burn him in effigy, at 
least, then tar and feather him, and deny him a 
residence among you, and thus teach him that 
he is your servant, and not your master. 

My word for it, Fellow-citizens, your repre- 
sentatives will not be untrue to you, when they 
find that you know what your rights are, and 
are determined to have them. 

The people should be made to feel the urgent 
necessity of electing men to Congress who will 
put an end to Shylock's refunding schemes, repeal 
the resumption lie (law), which holds that vast 
amount of specie in the treasury, beyond the 
reach of the people, and use that specie to cancel 
so much of the bonded debt. 

Our secretary of the treasury is so tender 
towards the bondholders that he will not force 
them to take silver for interest on their bonds even. 
I would have the bondholder forced to take silver 
for both principal and interest, and that, too, as 
fast as the government can get it to pay. I would 
have the bondholder back up his cart and have 



462 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

it loaded with silver. The silver dollar was 
gotten up by the bullionists, and they ought to be 
satisfied with money of their own manufacture. 
At the present price of silver the government 
can save at least 1 2 per cent, by using the surplus 
revenues of the government in buying silver bul- 
lion, coining it, and paying bonds with it. 
Would that not be honest? I think you will so 
decide, especially when you remember that the 
holders have been paid the cost of their bonds 
several times already. In short, I would have 
the government apply all its surplus revenues to 
the payment of the national debt. 

THE INCOME TAX. 

I would also have an income tax imposed upon 
the wealthy citizens of the country; and the 
money so raised I would devote to the extin- 
guishment of the public debt. In this connection, 
I will copy the following from the American 
Almanac for 1878: 

" In meeting the proposition then seriously advanced, 
in many quarters, that the income tax should be wholly 
removed, Mr. Wells called the attention of the country 
to the fact that the tax was paid, during 1868, by only 
two hundred and fifty thousand persons, out of the 
entire population of almost forty million, and yet the 
returns of those persons represented an aggregate 
of not less than ($800,000,000) eight hundred millions. 



AS A NATION. 463 

Even allowing for the families of these two hundred 
and fifty thousand contributors, it is evident that only 
about a million of the population were interested in 
having the income tax repealed, while the remaining 
thirty-eight million, out of forty million, were interested 
in having it maintained. Income tax passed July, 
1862. In 1868 the government received, from income 
tax, $32,027,610.78." 

These thirty-two million dollars which those 
two hundred and fifty thousand men were paying 
in tax, on their income, would be a great help in 
the way of lightening the people's burdens. Why 
was that law repealed? Simply because capital 
is above labor, in the estimation of the leaders of 
the old parties. 

Now, fellow-citizens, there is a thought 
involved in the repeal of the income tax law, 
with which I desire to impress you, if it is in my 
power. That income tax represented the enor- 
mous income of ($800,000,000) eight hundred 
million of dollars. Allowing the increase of the 
wealth of the country, derived from our lands, 
forests, mines and seas, to be three and one-half 
per cent, (which is the very outside limit) on the 
thirty billion, which the country is said to be 
worth, the total amount of increase each year 
would be ($1,050,000,000) one billion and fifty 
million. The income, which those two hundred 
and fifty thousand men were receiving, amounted 
to ($800,000,000) eight hundred millions, or 



464 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

nearly eight-tenths of the entire increase of the 
nation's wealth. 

Now listen, my countrymen: This mighty 
nation, of forty millions of people, tilling the 
prairies, felling the forests, delving in the mines, 
and ploughing the seas, while two hundred and 
fifty thousand men are pocketing nearly eight- 
tenths of their earnings ! 

Listen again: The most important fact, in 
relation to this transaction, is not the fact that 
those men got rid of their income tax, but the 
fact that a congress, elected by American voters,, 
took a tax of thirty-two million dollars off of two 
hundred and fifty thousand men, whose income 
was already consuming nearly eight-tenths of the 
nation's earnings, and added it to the annual bur- 
dens of an already overtaxed people. Hasten, 
fellow-citizens, and elect men to congress who 
will lift that burden from the necks of the people 
and place it back upon the shoulders of those two 
hundred and fifty thousand rich men, where it 
belongs, and devote it to the payment of the 
bonds. 

SHALL WE REPEAL THE REFUNDING LAWS. 

But, say you, "many of these bonds are 
refunded for thirty years, and can not be paid 
before that time." 

What makes you think that? 



AS A NATION. 465 

" Why, Shy lock sa}^s so." 

What arguments does Shylock use to sustain 
his theory? 

" Well, he says the government has made a 
contract with the bondholder, to that effect, and 
the government must not violate its contract." 

I would do the bondholder no harm; but he 
knows the sovereign power of this government 
to repeal any law found to be against the public 
weal. The government has seen fit to change the 
amount of gold and silver that shall pay a cer- 
tain amount of debt, from time to time, and the 
bondholder took his bonds subject to that con- 
tingency. 

But you remember, Fellow-citizens, that when 
the government debt was in five-twenty bonds it 
was payable in currency (greenbacks); you 
remember, also, when the law was changed, and 
they were made payable in specie. O. P. Morton 
said that gang of miserable stock-jobbers violated 
four statutes to do that. 

Be that as it may, the law, or contract, as they 
call it, has been changed once in the interest of 
the money power. How would it do to change 
it once in the interest of the people? It would 
surely be a strange phenomenon in American 
legislation; but, then, I am in favor of it, if nec- 
essary. I am in favor of legislating in the 
interest of the people. 



466 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

To say that the law refunding those bonds 
for thirty years can not be repealed, is to say 
that you can bribe Congress and ruin the nation. 
Should the money power induce Congress to 
issue bonds bearing twenty per cent, interest, to 
run three hundred years, what then? Why, if 
the law is not repealable, you would be obliged 
to stand it; you must not violate the contract. 

What folly! An argument that is good 
against the repeal of the law refunding those 
bonds for thirty years, is good against a law 
refunding them for three hundred or three 
thousand years; but there is no argument 
against the repeal of such a law, if the interest 
oi the country demands it. I would have those 
bonds paid as fast as the surplus revenues 
of the government, with the results of a good 
income tax added, could be made to pay them. 
In the meantime, might we not hope that the 
American people would become educated up to 
a point where they would not allow the govern- 
ment to issue bonds, interest-bearing nor non-in- 
terest-bearing? But, you ask, "should we become 
involved in war, and the treasury become 
exhausted, how would the government raise 
money to meet the emergency? " 



AS A NATION. 467 

THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT ISSUE BONDS. 

I ask, how does the government raise men to 
meet such emergencies? It drafts them, if they 
do not volunteer. I would have the government 
raise money in the same way: tax the wealth of 
the nation, and compel it to pay. Is a rich 
man's money more sacred than a poor man's 
life? 

Here are my sentiments, expressed by Mr. 
Kellogg, in Congress, when our country was 
involved in war: 

" Mr. Chairman : I am pained when I sit in my place 
in the house, and hear members talk about the sacred- 
ness of capital ; that the interests of money must not be 
touched. Yes, sir, they will vote six hundred thousand 
of the flower of the American youth for the army, to be 
sacrificed, without a blush, but the great interests of 
capital must not be touched. We have summoned the 
youth, and they have come. I would summon the capital; 
and if it does not come voluntarily [it never did], before 
this Republic shall go down, or one star be lost, I 
would take every cent from the treasury of the states, 
from the treasury of capitalists, from the treasury of 
individuals, and press it into the use of government.'" 

If the poor man refused to enter the army 
when he was needed, government forced him to 
enter. It tore him from the embrace of wife and 
children, and flung him into the jaws of death. 
When money was needed, did the government 



468 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

go to the rich man and force him to pay his 
money to save the nation's life? No, sir; it went 
to him with a bond, fondled and coaxed, offered 
him gold interest, and exempted his bond from 
taxation, thus compelling the poor man not only 
to fight the battles, but to pay the debt after the 
war was over. Was that putting capital above 
labor in the structure of the government ? It was 
putting it above life, liberty, and everything that 
is sweet and dear to the poor man. Every gov- 
ernment bond in existence is the coined infamy 
of the money power. Every dollar the capital- 
ists invested in bonds, they should have been 
compelled to pay to the government, in taxes, to 
defray the expenses of the war; they then would 
have been paying for the protection of their own 
property. That would have been paying taxes 
on their property, instead of putting it into non- 
taxable, interest-bearing bonds, which compelled 
the laborer to pay, not only the capitalists' local 
taxes, but to pay him interest on his bond. 
When the government wants money, it should 
tax property and get it ; it should not borrow it of 
the rich, exempt it from taxation, and thus com- 
pel the poor to pay it. 

Is this sound argument? In my judgment it 
is, according to the plainest principles of justice 
and equal rights, and I never expect to meet the 
man who can successfully dispute it. 



AS A NATION. 469 



The injustice of the bond system, I think, was 
well illustrated in a colloquy between myself and 
a bondholder, whose name I will call Crocker. 
It took place when the currency was being con- 
tracted. 

Mr. Crocker said to me: "Mr. Willey, you 
ought not to find fault with our currency system: 
it is good, and the credit of the government is 
good. I have invested one thousand dollars in 
four per cent, bonds, which, I consider, is as 
good as an investment on loan at six per cent, 
interest; and, I tell you, when men will invest 
their money in four per cent, bonds, it shows a 
good condition of the government credit." 

I did not explain to him what low bonds 
meant, as I have in a previous lecture, for I was 
after another point. 

I said to him: " Mr. Crocker, your transaction 
with the government may be all right for you, 
so far as your pecuniary interest is concerned. 
You have invested your thousand dollars in four 
per cent, bonds, which is as good as an ordinary 
loan at six per cent, interest, because the bond is 
not taxable; but have you considered all the 
elements in the proposition? Do you realize how 
your neighbors are afected by that act of 
yours? " 



470 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

"Well, he said, "they were calling him a 
bloated bondholder, but that it was none of their 
business. His money was his own, and he should 
do as he pleased with it." 

I then illustrated his position to him, as fol- 
lows: 

" The government, 7 ' said I, " is contracting 
the currency; it is putting out those bonds; and 
the money that is paid for them* is burned up 
by the secretary of the treasury, as fast as 
received, and the interest-bearing bond is left in 
place of your thousand dollars, and the currency 
is contracted so much. So, you see, your neigh- 
bors (the people) are affected by your transac- 
tion, as follows: When you purchased the bond 
you took the thousand dollars out of circulation 
and put it where it is not taxable. Taxes must 
then fall that much heavier on your neighbors; in 
addition to this, they must pay you interest on 
your bond. In other words, the day you pur- 
chased that bond your neighbors began to pay 
taxes on one thousand dollars of your property, and 
to pay you interest on a thousand dollars of your 
money, which they had never had, and which 
had been burned up and destroyed." 



*The burning of money took place only while the currency was being 
contracted, from 1866 to 1879. Between those dates more than one 
billion of money, of different kinds, was burned, and interest-bearing 
bonds issued in place of it. 



AS A NATION. 471 

" Do you not think it hard on your neighbors, 
Mr. Crocker? Do you not think that, with the 
growing intelligence of the people, such oppor- 
tunities to rob them will pass away from the 
capitalists?'' 

"Well," said he, "I don't know but they 
will." 

And well he might say so. For the whole 
bond system is oppressive to labor and destruc- 
tive to liberty, and exists only because the people 
do not thoroughly understand it. Let us hasten 
to inform them ; for, by so doing, we shall confer 
a rich and everlasting blessing on our country 
and coming generations. 

Before I pass to a consideration of the mone- 
tary system, which, I believe, is to take the place 
of the present one, I will answer a question 
which has often been asked me : 

" How do you propose to get rid of the national 
banks, without bringing a crash? If you take 
their currency out of circulation, it will shrink 
the volume of money, and bring disaster." 

I answer: In the law, repealing the national 
banking law, I would forbid the national banks 
to retire their circulation within a certain length 
of time. In the meantime I would have the 
government establish loan agencies, so that the 
people could get money, independent of the 
banks. That would prevent the banks from 



47 2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

embarrasing the people, by refusing to grant 
loans. 

The national bank currency is being received 
by the government in large amounts every day, 
in taxes. I would have the law provide that the 
secretary of the treasury should consign the cur- 
rency, so received, to the flames, giving the 
respective banks, whose notes shall be so 
destroyed, credit for the same; such credit to be 
applied, in liquidation to the extent of such 
credit, upon the government bonds, belonging 
to such banks, and held by the government, as 
as collaterals for the redemption, in greenbacks, 
of such notes, so destroyed ; and, for every note 
so destroyed, I would have the government issue 
and pay out, dollar for dollar, full legal tender 
greenbacks. By this process the national bank 
currency will be rapidly replaced by greenbacks; 
and when the whole of it shall have been so 
replaced, the government will only owe the banks 
ten per cent, of the face of the government bonds 
so held as collaterals, ninety per cent, thereof 
having been liquidated by the destruction of the 
bank notes, and their replacement by greenbacks, 
as above stated. The ten per cent, remaining 
due on those bonds can be easily paid in specie,- 
from the treasury. The government would thus 
be relieved of about four hundred million of its 
bonded debt, and the people be relieved of 



AS A NATION 473 

three hundred and fifty million of the most expen- 
sive currency a people were ever afflicted with. 

THE DIFFERENCE IN THE COST TO THE PEOPLE 

OF THE GEEENBACK AND NATIONAL 

BANK CURRENCY. 

Fellow-citizens, have you ever considered the 
difference in the cost, to the people, of the 
national bank currency and the greenback? 

I will show you: I -will make my calculation 
from 1868, when the first five-twenty bonds were 
payable. Since that time most of the national 
bank currency has rested on bonds, drawing six 
per cent, interest. From 1868 to 1882 is four- 
teen years. We will suppose you to hold in 
your right hand a one hundred dollar greenback 
bill. How much has that cost you, in the four- 
teen years, over and above its face value? Not 
one cent: it was paid directly to the people by 
the government, and bore no interest. You hold 
in }'our left hand a one hundred dollar national 
bank bill. How much has that cost you in the 
fourteen years, over and above its face value? 
It has cost you, over and above its face value as 
follows : 

Interest on bond, on which it is based, 6 per 

cent., 14 years, ----- $84 00 

Thus, you see, if those five-twenty bonds had 
been paid in greenbacks, as they ought to have 



474 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

been, and greenbacks put in the place of national 
bank currency, the people would have saved 
eighty-four dollars on every hundred dollars of 
national bank currency, which has been in use 
all these years. Allowing the average national 
bank circulation to have been three hundred 
million, its cost to the people, above what the 
greenbacks would have cost, has been, during 
those fourteen years, the enormous sum of two 
hundred and fifty-two millions. Is not national 
bank currency rather expensive? Do you won- 
der that Shylock wants to continue the national 
banks, when you see how he pockets the differ- 
ence in the cost, to the people, of the greenback 
and the national bank currency? To continue 
the national banks, you must continue the bonds; 
for bonds are the basis for national bank cur- 
rency; and, in order to have national bank cur- 
rency, you must continue to pay interest on 
bonds. In other words, a continuation of the 
national banks, means a continuation of the gov- 
ernment debt. Fellow-citizens how do you like 
our national banking system? 

HORACE GREEEEY ON THE NATIONAL BANKS. 

When Horace Greeley was a candidate for the 
presidency, he said: 

" There was a time when the national banks were a 
necessity but that time has long since passed away. 



AS A NATION. 475 

The time now is, when something better and cheaper, 
for the people, must take their place. Against this, of 
course, the banker and bondholder will protest, and 
the monied interests will oppose my election to the 
presidency." 

You can now understand, from the above 
quotation, why the money power set its press 
to abuse, and let loose its army of demagogues 
to howl at the heels of Horace Greeley. The 
monied interest knew that all parties would 
receive justice at the hands of Mr. Greeley, and 
that was just what they feared. They knew 
that Horace Greeley was a better friend to the 
colored man than Gen. Grant knew how to be. 
They knew Horace Greeley to be a genuine 
Republican, of the Lincoln stripe — a better one 
than Gen, Grant, with his habits, and training of 
body and mind, could possibly be. Their pre- 
tenses to the contrary were false, and intended 
to mislead the people, as to the real ground of 
their opposition to Mr. Greeley. They feared 
an honest and capable friend of the people, 
in the presidential chair. They knew that 
the election of Horace Greeley meant the 
destruction of their pet system of legalized 
robbery, and the overthrow of the national 
banking system; and when that was threatened, 
neither virtue, nor patriotism, nor a long life of 
usefulness, were considered, for one moment. 



47 6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

All his good acts were immediately forgotten. 
To threaten the national banking system was an 
offense, which no number of noble deeds, nor 
any sum of human greatness and goodness could 
atone for. The money power and its hirelings 
rushed upon him, as the rude waves rush upon 
the ship foundering in a gale, and the great 
heart that knew no hate was rent with the grief 
of the patriot, and ceased to beat forever. 

MONOPOLY OF MONEY ISSUE ITS REMOVAL. 

The one great monopoly which, more than all 
others, threaten the very existence of our free 
institutions, is the money monopoly of the bank- 
ing corporations. That monopoly is the power, 
centered in the national banks, to issue money. 
It carries with it the power to enlarge and con- 
tract the volume of our currency, as those banks 
shall see fit, and thereby control prices, the vast 
business interest of the country, and determine 
the degree of prosperity the people shall enjoy. 

This monopoly I would destroy, by taking 
" the power, to issue money, from the banks and 
restoring it to the government and the people, 
where it belongs.'" 

Here we are confronted with two proposi- 
tions: 

First. Can the government safely issue money 
and loan it to the people? 



AS A NATION. 477 

Second. Would it be profitable to the people 
for the government to loan the money, instead 
of the banks ? 

I will discuss the former proposition first. 

Can the government safely issue money, and 
loan it to the people? 

Can you tell me why it would not be just as 
safe for the government to issue money, and loan 
it to the people, as it is to make it, hand it over 
to the bankers, and let them loan it to the 
people? especially when we consider that all the 
safety there is in the national bank money is 
given it by the government — the government 
having, in effect, become security for the pay- 
ment of the bankers' notes. 

Again, I ask is history and experience worth 
anything in an argument ? If it is, then is not 
the history of the bank of Venice, and of Dr. 
Franklin's Pennsylvania mone} T system, a mighty 
and an unanswerable argument here? The bank 
of Venice continued century after century, with- 
out causing or permitting a jar in commercial 
matters in the country where it existed. And 
Dr. Franklin's system continued fifty years with- 
out a symptom of disaster in trade, the very life 
blood of which depended upon the correct and 
successful working of that system of money. 
Has the specie basis system any such history to 
recommend its continuance here? No! The 



478 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

bullionist cannot point to a period of twenty 
years — much less centuries — anywhere in the 
history of his infernal system, in which there was 
not disaster, failure and loss to the people, sad to 
reflect upon. 

But you ask: "Should the government issue 
money and loan it to the people, what basis 
would that money have?" I ask: "What basis 
does our money rest upon now?" You answer: 
" Why upon the government's promise to redeem 
in specie." But have I not clearly proven that 
the government, if called upon, cannot fulfill that 
promise ? 

But you say, " there is some specie behind our 
paper money, and so it represents some intrinsic 
value; but, if the government issues money with- 
out any promise to pay specie, there is no part of 
our paper money redeemable, and it will repre- 
sent no intrinsic value whatever." Here you 
appear to lose sight of what constitutes the real 
money value of a medium of exchange. 

To preface the arguments, which I wish to 
use on this branch of the subject, I will 
quote an extract from a speech of Col. P. E. 
Bland, of Missouri, who stands in the front 
rank of the eminent legal minds of that state, 
and who, although twice defeated for the supreme 
judgeship of his state, by the money power, in 
consequence of his unfaltering opposition to mo- 



AS A NATION. 479 

nopoly and his fidelity to the interests of the 
people, he nevertheless possesses one of the 
clearest minds in this nation. The speech re- 
ferred to was delivered in the Masonic Hall, St. 
Louis, Mo., in 1878. The following extract 
contains his statement of what constitutes the 
value of money, as well as of other things: 

COL. BLAND ON WHAT CONSTITUTES VALUE. 

" Having now demonstrated the constitutional power 
of congress to coin and put in circulation paper money, 
and to regulate its value, and make it legal tender for 
payments, I propose to show that the money so coined 
and made legal tender, and issued in a volume fixed 
stable and unchangeable in its ratio to population, 
has actual value — value derived from the same causes 
which impart value to the precious metals, and to all 
other things. 

" The actual value of money, as distinguished from 
the ideal or legal value fixed by congress, depends 
upon that supreme and inexorable law, which affects 
all things alike — the law of supply and demand — in 
determining value. Value varies according to the en- 
ergy of the demand, and the energy of the demand is 
always in inverse ratio to the volume of supply, 

" In respect to legal tender paper money, Congress 
fixes the volume of the supply. Let us assume that 
this volume has been fixed $ r ,000,000,000 — $500,000,000 
less than it was at the period of our greatest prosperity. 
Statisticians estimate the transactions in this country 
at $100,000,000,000 a year, the indebtedness of our 
people — state, municipal, private corporation and indi- 



480 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

vidual — at $20,000,000,000, and the taxes to be paid 
annually — national, state and municipal — at $500,000,- 
000. 

" The Government paper, being legal tender, and re- 
ceivable for public dues, is good for the payment of 
those debts and taxes. Therefore, to say nothing of 
that vast amount of transactions which require a hun- 
dred times the volume of such a currency for their 
movement, here is an annual demand for twenty bil- 
lions five hundred millions of dollars, and a supply, to 
that demand, of only one billion dollars — more than 
twenty dollars of demand for every dollar of supply ! — . 
a ratio of demand to supply of more than twenty to 
one. 

" These facts render it indubitable, that under a 
pressure of demand so immense, and a supply so lim- 
ited, the legal tender paper coins of the United States 
would have actual value, aside from and independent 
of the legal value impressed upon them by law — a value 
resulting from their legal functions, to be sure, but 
none the less arising out of the demand for them, 
which, in turn, arises out ot the fact of their possessing 
those functions. 

" Thus we perceive that the legal paper money of the 
government derives value from the same source whence 
everything of value upon this earth derives its value." 

I regret that lack of space forbids a more 
extended quotation. But, suffice it to say this 
view of the case was supported by Col. Bland, 
by a course of philosophical reasoning and an 
array of facts so tersely, clearly and eloquently 
stated as to be perfectly irresistible. 

It will be observed that he does not deny the 



AS A NATION. 48 1 

money power given to a circulating medium by 
law; but he claims a value for money outside of 
that — a value which is given it by use and conse- 
quent demand. In short, the grand and philo- 
sophical principle, stated by Col. Bland, is that if 
one billion of dollars were demanded to 
exchange the products of labor and the various 
kinds of property in the country, that very 
demand would make that billion dollars worth a 
billion dollars in gold or any other commodity r 
without any regard to its redeemability in 
specie: And who can resist his reasoning? 

Then, money has another value, given it 
by law, which may be illustrated as follows: 
Jones, the farmer, wants a plow. He has wheat 
worth one dollar per bushel, but no money, 
Sullivan has a plow to sell. The price is ten 
dollars; but he will not receive Jones' wheat; in 
payment, because he does not need wheat, and, 
besides, he owes his neighbor, Hopkins, ten dol- 
lars, and the wheat will not pay the debt. Now, 
anything that will purchase the plow is worth 
ten dollars in the hands of Jones; and anything 
that will pa)' the ten-dollar debt is worth ten 
dollars in the hands of Sullivan. 

Well, the government has stamped upon gold, 
silver, nickel, tin, or paper, the words: "This is 
a legal tender for all debts and dues public and 
private." 



482 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Now, if Jones can get hold of a ten dollar bill, 
of that kind, he can purchase the plow of Sul- 
livan, because Sullivan can use the bill to pay his 
debt to Hopkins. 

The miller wants wheat. Jones exchanges 
ten bushels of wheat for a ten-dollar bill, pur- 
chases the plow from Sullivan, and Sullivan pays 
the debt to Hopkins. 

Now, the miller has got his wheat, Jones his 
plow, and Sullivan has paid his debt. That ten- 
dollar bill was of the value of ten dollars to the 
miller, because it would purchase ten bushels of 
w T heat; it was of the value of ten dollars to 
Jones, because it would purchase the plow; it 
was of the value of ten dollars to Sullivan, 
because it would pay his debt to Hopkins. 

That ten-dollar bill was worth its face value, 
and did that thirty dollars of business because it 
was a legal tender to Hopkins for debt. 

"But," } T ou ask, "how is it with poor Hop- 
kins? He has got his ten-dollar bill; but he 
does not owe anybody, and wants to exchange 
his paper money for silver." 

HOW TO MAKE PAPER MONEY EXCHANGEABLE 

FOR SPECIE. 

Very well, can he not do so? Anything that 
will pay a debt is exchangeable for, and will pur- 
chase, everything that is purchasable; because, 



AS A NATION. 483 

as Col. Bland says, our indebtedness is many 
times greater than our whole volume of cur- 
rency, and this has created an immense demand 
for a debt-paying medium. Everybody wants it, 
because every one either owes a debt or wishes 
to purchase of those who do. 

If Hopkins wants silver spoons, the merchant 
will exchange them for his legal tender paper 
money, because that money will pay his clerks, his 
store rent, the wholesale dealer behind him, and 
every other debt he owes; and, if he wants silver 
bullion he can purchase it of the miner, because 
the miner is always glad to exchange his silver 
bullion for money which will pay debts, and 
therefore purchase the things he needs. If he 
wants to go to Europe, the Europeans will take 
his legal tender money, because they can use it, 
in all their business transactions, with this country, 
the same as they did our sixty million full legal 
tenders during the war. If he wants silver coin, 
there is not a man on the continent who would 
not gladly exchange specie for legal tender 
paper, because paper money is so much more 
convenient to handle. Do you not see that any- 
thing that will purchase wheat or pork, will pur- 
chase gold or silver? There is only one way to 
make paper money exchangeable for specie, at all 
times, when it is to be had at all, viz.: to make 
it full legal tender. Then it will do all that 



484 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

specie can do, as money, and everybody would 
prefer it to specie. So you see, making paper 
money a full legal tender for debt, makes it ex- 
changeable, not only for gold and silver, but for 
every other purchaseable thing. Hence, you 
see, such a money, issued by the government, 
with its debt-paying power, as certain and endur- 
ing as the government itself, must be a much 
better money than that issued by a banking cor- 
poration, with its debt-paying power wholly 
dependent upon the power of the bank, or gov- 
ernment even, to redeem it with specie. 

You can but feel the force of this truth, when 
you consider that the means of the government 
to redeem in specie — that is, its specie in the 
treasury — is not above one-fifth of the amount of 
paper money in circulation; for the specie in 
the treasury, for redemption purposes, being only 
forty per cent, of the greenbacks, is, therefore, 
less than twenty per cent, of the whole paper 
circulation. . 

Which is the more substantial basis for 
paper money; is it specie, to the amount of one* 
fifth of the face value of the currency issued? 
or is it land, in double the amount of such cur- 
rency ? 

Specie is not only sure to disappear, when 
needed for redemption purposes, but is liable to 
become worthless, as I have proven from the 



AS A NATION. 485 

American Cyclo-pcedia. But land can never flee 
away, nor become worthless, while life has to be 
sustained with food supplied from the earth. 

The paper currency of the country never has 
been, nor ever will be redeemed, in specie, by 
the banks, nor by the government; but it is 
redeemed, by the people, every time it pays 
a debt or is exchanged for value. 

A ten-dollar bill, passing from the hand of A, 
may pay a debt to C, another to D, and so pass 
on, from one to another, paying a debt, and 
being redeemed every time it changes hands, and 
thus it may pay a hundred dollars of indebted- 
ness, and be redeemed ten times in a single day. 
I know not how much the people pay annually 
in taxes of all kinds, but probably more than 
one-half the amount of the entire circulation of 
the country. If so, then it will be seen that our 
money is not only redeemed many times every 
year, in exchanging commodities, and discharg- 
ing indebtedness, but is redeemed every two 
years, by the government in taxes. What more 
is needed? Such a money is always exchange- 
able for specie, when there is any specie. 

A full Iegaf tender money issued by the gov- 
ernment, redeemable in taxes, and loaned to the 
people, on real estate security, has the most sub- 
stantial basis imaginable; and, of course, cannot 
depreciate below the value of land pledged for its 



486 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

redemption. As Dr. Franklin has told you, 
money so issued, is, in effect, " coined land." 

Taking it for granted you are satisfied that the 
policy of the government issuing money is a safe 
one, I will now consider briefly the advantanges 
which the government would derive from such a 
policy. 

THE ADVANTAGES THAT WOULD ACCRUE TO 

THE PEOPLE FROM GOVERNMENT 

LOANING MONEY. 

I heard the Hon. Gilbert De La Matyr, of 
Indiana, say in a public speech, that he had been 
informed by competent authority at Washing- 
ton, that the whole indebtedness of the Ameri- 
can people, private and public, amounts to not 
far from ($20,000,000,000) twenty billion of dol- 
lars. The interest, at seven per cent., on that 
sum of money, would amount to ($1,400,000,- 
000) one billion four hundred million dollars per 
annum. Now, let us suppose the government to 
loan money to the people at say three per cent. 
The debtor class would immediately avail itself 
of the opportunity to charge their present obli- 
gations into those bearing a lower rate of inter 
est. The saving would then be 4 per cent, on 
the twenty billions, which is eight hundred mil- 
lion dollars per annum. That amount of money 
would purchase an eight hundred dollar home 



AS A NATION. 487 

for every tenth family in the United States. But 
that sum, immense as it is, does not near repre- 
sent the amount of saving that would result to 
the people, from the government loaning money, 
instead of banks. You see, the people would, 
not only save directly the four per cent, differ- 
ence in the seven per cent, interest they now pay 
and the three per cent, they would pay the gov- 
ernment, but they would save directly the other 
three per cent., because the government would 
use the interest, collected on money loaned, to 
pay government expenses and lift the burden of 
taxation from the people. Think a moment: 
The three per cent, interest, which the govern- 
ment would realize on that amount of money 
loaned, would aggregate ($600,000,000) six 
hundred millions per annum. This amount, if 
the government saw fit to so appty it, would 
build fifteen thousand miles of railroad at forty 
thousand dollars per mile. In other words, the 
government could build five lines of railroad 
across the continent every year with the money 
so saved. But let us suppose the government to 
save one-half, or one-fourth that amount ; it would 
be an immense saving. Railroad and telegraph 
monopoly could be destroyed by the government 
building competing lines, and operating them 
under control of the people, and carrying pas- 



488 HITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

sengers and freight, and transmitting messages 
at reasonable rates. 

But the great advantage to the people would 
result from a lower rate of interest. 

Does the citizen out of debt say, " What do I 
care about the rates of interest; I don't hire 
money." 

Well, sir, it affects you all the same. 

Let us illustrate : The wheat buyer in New 
York, going to purchase wheat in Minnesota and 
ship it to New York, would soliloquize as follows : 
" Wheat is worth so much in the New York 
market. Transportation will cost so much, in- 
cidentals so much, and my money seven per 
cent, interest. I can can pay the Minnesota 
wheat raiser so much for his wheat, less the cost 
of transportation, less the incidentals, and less the 
interest on the money." 

Of course, if the money used in the purchase 
of wheat is worth seven per cent., that amount 
must be deducted from the producer's price, 
and the producer must lose it, for labor must 
pay everything in the end. Hence, it will be 
seen, that, should the rate of interest on money 
be changed from seven to three per cent., the 
four per cent, difference would be added to the 
producer's income, whether he hires money or 
not. So you, citizen out of debt, can but see 
that the question of high or low interest con- 



AS A NATION. 489 

cerns your welfare very much. High rates of 
interest mean lower prices for the products of 
your labor, while low rates mean higher prices for 
those products. 

In other words, to lower the rates of interest 
from 7 to 3 per cent., is to take four per cent, 
from the income of the money-loaning class, who 
constitute about five per cent, of our population, 
and save it to the laboring and producing class, 
who constitute about ninety per cent, of the pop- 
ulation, and who produce all the wealth of the 
count ry. 

TWO SYSTEMS OF LOANING MONEY DIFFER- 
ENCE IN THE COST TO THE PEOPLE. 

To illustrate the difference in the effect, upon 
the people, of the specie-basis banking system, as 
now existing, and the one I propose, we will 
say that the government is issuing money: 
The people are electing their own loan 
agents or bankers, and putting those agents 
under bonds, for the safe-keeping and proper 
handling of every cent of their money, and 
thus guarding the people, and government, 
against any possible loss; the interest collected 
by the government is being used to defray the 
expenses of the government, thus relieving the 
people of a heavy burden of taxation. The inter- 
est, which is being paid on money, is not concen- 



49° WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

trating in the hands of the bankers creating a 
dangerous money monopoly, but is being re-dis- 
tributed among the people, in paying that which 
they would otherwise be obliged to pay in taxes. 
Can any rational mind see anything but good to 
result from such a system as this? 

Now, while this policy is being pursued, and 
the whole people getting the benefit of the inter- 
est paid on money, let us see what results would 
follow a change, back to the present system of 
banking. To make the illustration simple and 
clear, we will take a single township — 23,040 
acres — and estimate the land at $10 per acre. 
This gives $230,400 as the aggregate value of 
the land in the township. Now the gold bug* 
comes along and convinces the people that they 
ought not to permit the government to loan 
money, but, instead, ought to let him furnish it. 
Well, he sets up his bank with a chunk of gold, 
worth twenty thousand dollars. On that twenty 
thousand dollars, in specie, he issues one hundred 
thousand dollars, in bank bills, which are his own 
promises to pay one hundred thousand dollars, 
with a capital of twenty thousand. The hundred 
thousand dollars is soon loaned to the people, at 
ten per cent, interest. Take notice! ten per 
cent, interest, on one hundred thousand dollars, 
is fifty per cent, on his real capital; for, remem- 
ber he has a basis of only twenty thousand 



AS A NATION. 49 1 

dollars. This hundred thousand dollars, issued 
on twenty thousand in gold, he has promised to 
pay the people in specie, but he knows he cannot 
do it. Thus the people are using his notes, 
which he can never pay, to do business with. 

Now, plain figures show that, in twenty-five 
years, the citizens of the township will have paid 
the banker $250,000, in simple interest, which is 
$19,600 more than their land was worth, when 
the banker (the legal robber) came among 
them. 

But that is not all the loss they must suffer. 
When they consented for the broker to furnish 
them money, instead of the government, the 
government lost its interest income, which had 
been paying the people's taxes, and now the 
people must pay them. 

But this is not all. There comes a panic — 
there is a run on the bank for redemption in 
specie. 

What then? Why the people find out, what 
they ought to have known in the beginning, viz : 
that one hundred thousand dollars cannot be 
redeemed with twenty thousand. There is no 
redemption for their money. The volume of 
currency is contracted, as a result of a run on the 
banks. Prices fall, and where are the people? 
What is their condition? 

The) 7 have lost more than the whole value of 



49 2 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

their land, in interest paid. They have lost the 
saving in taxes, and now must lose a portion, if 
not all, of their money. 

But how has the banker fared? He has been 
drawing interest on his debts, to the amount of 
more than five times his investment : and now, 
he has mortgages, on the people's land, for more 
than five times the amount he ever had invested, 
and many an honest farmer must give up his 
home to Shylock, and toil on, in poverty, while 
the banker rolls in wealth and shouts " Honest 
money! " 

Fellow-citizens, can you not see that such a 
system of banking, if allowed to continue, will 
bring certain and irretrievable ruin upon our 
country ? 

To satisfy you that I have not overstated the 
real situation of the bankers, as to his loaning his 
debts, and the proportion of his capital to the 
amount on which^he draws interest, etc., I will 
copy the following from Peter Cooper's appeal 
to the people in 1882. The name of the author 
is sufficient guarantee for its correctness. 

FACTS WORTHY OF CAREFUL CONSIDERATION. 

"Mr. John Knox, the comptroller of the currency, in 
his annual report for the year 1880, recently published, 
says that the banks now established in the United 
States are as follows: 



AS A NATION. 493 

National banks 2,076 

States, savings, and private banks 4,456 

Total number of banks 6,532 

"The capital of these banks is as follows : 

National banks $455,910,000 

State, savings, and private banks 194,140,000 

Total capital $650,050,000 

" These banks have the money of the people depos- 
ited in them as follows : 

National banks $ 900,790,000 

State, savings, and private banks 1,319,090,000 

Total deposits $2,219,880,000 

" The national banks invest their capital mostly in 
government bonds, on which the secretary of the treas- 
ury has given them in national bank notes $342,663,451, 
Now, if we take the amount of the bank notes, which 
is practically a free gift of the people to the national 
banks, from the amount of capital, it stands as follows : 

Capital of the national banks $455,910,000 

National bank notes out 342,063,451 

It leaves of actual capital but $113,846,549 

" On this they hold of the people's money deposited 
with them $900,790,000. These figures show that the 
national banks are using and doing business with 
about $8 of the money belonging to the people to each 
$1 of their own money invested. 

11 By comparing the amount of deposits in the state, 
savings, and private banks with their capital, we dis- 
cover that they are using $7 of the people's money to 
$1 of their own. 

"Now, if we take the amount of bank notes from the 



494 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

total capital of all the banks, we find that it is as fol- 
lows : 

Total amount of capital $650,050,000 

Bank notes 342,063,451 

It leaves of actual capital $307,986,549 

" By comparison of these figures with the total 
amount of deposits held by all the banks, it will be ob- 
served that the entire banking institutions of the coun- 
try hold and use about $7 of money belonging to the 
people to $1 of their own capital invested." 

Here, it will be seen, the private banks are 
drawing interest on seven dollars, oT the people's 
money, for every one of their own, actually 
invested; and the national banks, always a little 
ahead, go a dollar better. They draw interest 
on eight dollars, of the people's money for every 
one of their own iictually invested. What a 
commentary on the intelligence of the American 
people who permit it; and what an argument 
for the continuance of the present banking sys- 
tem. Great God! cannot this people be induced 
to sweep the present banking laws from the 
statute books of this nation? As soon as they 
come to understand the real working of our pres- 
ent banking system, and its relation to their 
prosperity and continued freedom, they will strike 
down the infernal system and drag its corrupt 
remains from across the path that leads this 
country to prosperity and happiness. 



AS A NATION 495 



LECTURE XIV. 



THE BANK OF ENGLAND. 

"THE BANK OP ENGLAND— PROF. WALKEE ON SPECIE BASIS, 
BANKING, ETC.— PROF. WALKER ON THE CAUSE OF HARD TIMES 
—CAN SPECIE BE MADE A SAFE BASIS FOR MONEY— SHOULD 
SPECIE LEAVE THE COUNTRY, WOULD IT HARM US — THE OB- 
JECTION URGED— ANSWER TO THE OBJECTION— THE NEW YCRK 
TRIBUNE'S TESTIMONY — ADMISSION OF THE N. Y. TRIBUNE — 
AGAIN— THE N. Y. TRIBUNE AGAIN— N. Y. TRIBUNE AGAIN— 
EFFECT OF CONTRACTING THEIR LOANS, BY THE BANKS, ON 
PRICES— TESTIMONY OF THE N. Y. DAILY EXCHANGE— THE N. Y. 
MERCANTILE JOURNAL'S TESTIMONY — TESTIMONY OF THE 
CHICAGO NEWS — TESTIMONY OF THE FINANCIAL CHRONICLE — 
THE BANKS AND MONEY-LOANERS AS DESPOTIC AS THE CZAR 
CF RUSSIA — RELIEF FOR THE LABORER. 

In further consideration of the subject looking 
to a remedy, I will notice the tyranny of the 
specie basis system in England. 

In order to show how completely the Bank of 
England, under the specie basis system, controls 
the wages of the laborer, and the price of every- 
thing he consumes, I will quote some authorities 
on the subject. 

After the disaster of 1847, * n England, the 
House of Lords and House of Commons, appointed 
a committee to inquire into the condition of the 
Bank of England. 



496 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The following is an extract from Mr. Bryant's 
Work on Money: 

" The following is a portion of the testimony given by 
John H. Palmer, at that time a director, and soon after 
made governor of the bank of England ; 

" It is by producing a fall in the commodities in this 
country that you correct the exchanges? Ans.— Yes;, 
not only merely in that way, but you would bring cap- 
ital into the country by a high rate of interest. 

" It is by interference with trade that it acts, and not 
merely by the inconvenience of the bill-holders? Ans. 
— It causes the stoppage of trade. 

"What would be the effect upon the manufacturers 
and laborers of the country during such an operation? 
Ans. — It destroys the labor of the country. At the 
present moment, in the neighborhood of London, and 
in the manufacturing districts, you can hardly move in 
any direction without hearing universal complaint of 
the want of employment by the laborers of the country. 

" That you ascribe to the measures it was necessary 
for the bank to adopt in order to preserve the convert- 
ibility (specie payments of its) notes ? Ans. — I think 
the present depressed state of labor is entirely owing 
to that circumstance. 

"And the pressure of the bank produces forced sales ? 
Ans. — It stops credit, and the British merchant sells his 
goods for the purpose of meeting his private payments, 
and brings his capital to the bank at an earlier period 
than it would come in the ordinary course of business. 
There is no means of supplying the bank with gold, ex- 
cepting only the diminution of the bank-notes, which 
immediately contracts the currency, and lowers prices 
by increasing the value of money." 



AS A NATION. 497 

Is not the above testimony shocking? The 
gist — yea, the positive statement — of the Gov- 
ernor of the Bank of England, is that when there 
is a pressure upon the bank, it must, in order to 
save itself, contract its currency, and thereby 
lower prices, increase the value of money, throw 
the poor laboring people out of employment to 
beg or starve, and bring terrible suffering upon 
the people. Fellow citizens, do you not see, that 
the Bank of England is a despot of the most 
unpitying character? Read the following from 
Mr. J. S. Lord, one of the most reliable English 
authorities on money: 

"Against the actual exhaustion of her treasure by a 
drain through the foreign exchanges, the bank of 
England, under almost any circumstances, has the 
power to protect herself; but to do this she must pro- 
duce upon the money market a pressure ruinous from 
its suddenness and severity; she must save herself by 
the destruction of all around her.'' 

Notice the statement, here, that the Bank of 
England can protect herself under almost any 
circumstances. This is an admission that she 
cannot always protect herself, even by bringing 
disaster upon the people. Think of it! The 
only show the Bank of England has to save itself, 
in a crisis, is to bring destruction upon the 
business world around her. Heavens, what an 
engine of oppression! 



498 yVHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

To show what some of the better class of 
Englishmen think of the bank of England, I will 
quote Bryant: 

" Mr. Sealy, of England, in his work on 'Coins and 
Currency,' published at London in 1853, holds the fol- 
lowing opinion of the bank of England: " 

" The commerce of the country is now in the power 
of the bank of England, as it was before the legisla- 
ture. For legislative enactment we have substituted 
the decision of the Bank Parlor ; for a responsible gov- 
ernment, composed of kings, queens, lords, and com- 
mons, we have substituted an irresponsible body com- 
posed of twenty-four directors and a governor and dep- 
uty governor. To these we have confided the com- 
merce of this mighty empire. Instead of a mercantile 
system supported by merchants, and manufacturers 
and agricultural interests, we have now the monetary 
system endangering the welfare of merchants, manu- 
facturers, and agriculturists — for the benefit of the fund- 
holding classes.'' 

Mark what Mr. Sealy says: He says, in 
effect, that the Bank of England is dangerous to 
the welfare of merchants, manufacturers and the 
agricultural interest — and all this for the benefit 
of the fund-holding class (monied men). 

To show that disasters are understood, by 
political economists, to be brought about by a 
manipulation of the currency, made possible by 
the specie basis system, I will quote one more 
authority, although it may seem superfluous. 



AS A NATION. 499 

PROF. WALKER ON SPECIE BASIS, BANKING, ETC. 

Mr. Francis A. Walker, Professor of History 
and Political Economy, in Yale College, in 
speaking of a mixed currency and the specie basis 
system, says: 

"Yet, under the fluctuations of a mixed currency, 
buyers and sellers of all classes experience injustice as 
great and distressing as would result to dealers in cloth 
from that falsification of the yard-stick. This it is 
which makes business a very complicated kind of gam- 
bling. This it is that tosses up or pulls down prices, 
enough to ruin the merchant or the manufacturer, or to 
make their fortunes, while their goods are in their 
bands before they can be turned. . . . Practically, 
mixed currency banks expand the currency as often and 
as much as possible; and, when reaction comes, they 
hold on to specie payments, and a high rate of interest ; 
until the bankruptcy of their debtors begins to be so 
alarming as to endanger their own securities. Then 
they suspend, and allow their debtors to pay up in 
notes they cannot redeem in specie, and thus settle the 
indebtedness of themselves and the public. 

" Such is the natural result, and, on the whole, a 
highly satisfactory one to the banking interest." 

Of course, it is highly satisfactory, to the 
banking interests, to have the people pay up the 
bankers' notes, which they cannot redeem in 
specie. 

When will the people open their eyes? 



500 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

PROFESSOR WALKER, OF YALE COLLEGE, ON 
THE CAUSE OF HARD TIMES. 

" When the process of contraction commences, the 
first class-on whom it falls is the merchants of the large 
cities — they find it difficult to get money to pay their 
notes. The next class is the manufacturers — the sale 
for their goods at once falls off. The laborers and 
mechanics next feel the pressure — they are thrown out 
of employment; and lastly, the farmer finds a dull sale 
for his produce. And all, unsuspicious of the real 
cause, have a vague idea that their difficulties are 
owing to the 'hard times.' Periodical revulsions in 
trade of a frightful character have occurred in this 
country at short intervals ever since the introduction 
of the mixed currency system. Their terrible effects 
(1818, 1837, 1857 in particular) have been seen by all, 
and we have become so familiar with them that we look 
upon them as the natural phenomena of business; but 
it is not so— such fearful disasters never happen in a 
normal state of trade, and can only be produced by a 
false and delusive standard of value — a fluctuating cur- 
rency." 

Here, you see, the political economists under- 
stand that the disasters of 181 8, 1837, 1857, as 
well as 1873, were brought on by a contraction 
of the currency. In other words, the bankers 
and money sharks brought on those disasters by 
contracting the currency, and reaped a harvest 
from the people, while, as the professor says, in 
effect, the people spoke of the depressed business 






AS A NATION. 50I 

conditions as " hard times," and that was all they 
knew about it. So thoroughly have the capital- 
ists instilled the lie into their minds — that hard 
times are unavoidable — that the people look for 
them now, as an affliction necessary for them 
to endure about once every ten years. 

In regard to the national bank currency, and 
our present system of banking, Prof. Walker 
says : 

"The new currency resembles that of the old state 
banks, in that (after specie payments begin), it is a 
mixed currency, and in all essential respects, as to its 
nature and effects, of the same character. 

"1st. It will expand and contract from the same 
causes, and with the same violence, and to the same 
extent (it will expand to a greater degree, from the fact 
of its greater credit among the people). 

"2d. It will be an equally delusive standard of value. 

"3d. It will raise prices and cause speculation when 
expanding, and depress prices and cause bankruptcies 
when contracting." 

Leaving the above quotation for your consid- 
eration, without comment, I will quote high 
authority on the use of specie as money. 

William S. Jcvons, Professor of Logic and 
Political Economy, in the Owens University, in 
England, speaks as follows: 

"We have seen that this is the weak point of the 
precious metals in their use as money. . . . And the 



502 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

writers quoted are undoubtedly right in urging that the 
affixing of such a scale (the money scale) to any ma- 
terial commodity like gold and silver, must result in 
something less than justice in deferred payments, 
through the depreciation or appreciation of the metals, 
due to changes occurring in the meantime in produc- 
tion, etc. 

" That the wrong done to one or the other party to 
long contract's may not be slight, but serious, and at 
times even ruinous, will be admitted by all who are 
familiar with the history of money and of the produc- 
tion of the metals." 

I copy the following from Bryant on Money: 

II The following is a portion of the testimony of 
James Morris and Henry J. Prescott, the governor and 
the deputy-governor of the Bank of England, before 
the 'Secret Committee:' 

" Is there, in your opinion, any mode by which the 
tendency to an efflux of the precious metals, and the 
consequent diminution of the circulating medium, can 
be arrested, other than that of such a reduction of 
prices of commodities as shall lead to export, and such 
a rise in the value of money as is indicated by the ad- 
vance of the rate of interest? Ans. — No, I think there 
is no other method." 

I could multiply testimony, from the highest 
authority on the science of money and political 
economy, to prove the total unfitness of specie 
for money, or as a basis for money, in conse- 
quence of its limited and ever varying quantity, 
as well as its commercial value, which is liable 



AS A NATION. 503 

to interfere with its free circulation as money. 
But I will quote only two more, to this particular 
point. 

CAN SPECIE BE MADE A SAFE BASIS FOR 
MONEY. 

Sir John Lubbok is a distinguished banker in 
London. He has published a work on money, 
in which he says: 

" It may be doubted whether any system of converti- 
ble paper currency can be devised, consistent with 
profits to the issuers, which is not exposed in extreme 
cases to the danger of suspension; and when this 
danger is apprehended, all attempts fail to estimate the 
injury which the country suffers." 

The truth, of Mr. Lubbok's statement, is veri- 
fied by the entire history of the specie basis 
system. It is impossible to devise one, which 
will not bring disaster upon the country, such 
that " all attempts fail to estimate the injury 
which the country suffers." 

When the balance of trade is in our favor, 
specie flows into our country, gives us more 
money, and business revives, as it did, for instance, 
in 1880. But when the balance of trade turns 
against us, specie leaves the country. This 
makes our volume of money smaller, lowers 
prices, and brings hard times. 



504 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The other authority, to whom I refer, is John 
Thompson, a prominent banker in New YorK. 
In a speech, delivered before an assemblage of 
bankers, which met at Niagara Falls, in August, 
1 88 1, Mr. Thompson said: 

" The most important sign of a coming panic and 
revulsion is to be found in our trade balances with 
foreign nations. As over-prosperity has been hugely 
augmented by the importation of gold, so when the 
flow of the precious metal is from us, distrust will in- 
spire contraction, and contraction will lead directly 
to inability to pay. Money not only becomes scarce, 
but it is absolutely gone." 

What more proof do you want of the total 
unreliability of specie, as money, than the above 
statement of Mr. Thompson? It is a positive 
declaration, by a very prominent banker and 
goldite, that, when the balance of trade is against 
us, the money (specie) not only becomes scarce, 
but is absolutely gone. He further states that, 
when specie is flowing from us, " distrust will 
inspire contraction, and contraction will lead 
directly to inability to pay." You, fellow- 
citizens, know what results follow : awful distress 
overtakes the people, and they cannot pay their 
debts. At the same time, money sharks are 
foreclosing their mortgages, and gathering in the 
people's property. 

" But," say you, " if we cease to use specie, as 



AS A NATION. 505 

money, how shall we settle our balances, with 
foreign nations? " 

How often I have heard that question asked. 
Indeed, it is rather a favorite question with the 
bullionists. They usually ask it, and then say to 
ine: 

"If this country was a China, all walled in, and 
we had no trade with foreign nations, we could 
as sent to your theory of money. But how shall we 
settleour balances?" I answer; Settle them with 
gold and silver bullion, precisely as we do now. 
Our silver dollars and gold Eagles are weighed 
and go as bullion — as commodities — in other 
countries. In other countries they pay no atten- 
tion to the stamp on our money. Now, if the 
product of our mines was all in bars, and used in 
that form, in our foreign trade, it would not enter 
into circulation here, and enlarge the volume of 
money, and send prices up, when the balance of 
trade is in our favor, and leave the country, con- 
tract the volume of money, send prices down, 
and bring disaster, when the balance of trade is 
against us, and thus keep business so continually 
unsettled as to defy the best business talent on 
earth to succeed, unless he is dealing in money, 
and, as the saying is, knows the ropes. 

Can you resist these arguments? I have never 
met the man who could overthrow them, and 1 
never expect to. Of course the bankers and 



506 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

money-sharks will ridicule them, but they cannot 
answer them. They are as unanswerable now, 
as they were when Dr. Franklin put them before 
the citizens of Pennsylvania. 

Discarding the use of specie as money, would 
not loose to the country the benefits arising from 
the development of our gold and silver mines, 
though Shylock would have the people believe it 
would. Gold and silver can be used, in our trade 
with foreign nations, with benefit to the country; 
but they are ruinous as a circulating medium, as 
history clearly demonstrates. 

But the goldites will cling, with death-like 
tenacity, to the specie basis system, for at least 
three important reasons. 

First. It enables them to draw interest on seven 
or eight dollars of the people's money for every 
one of their own invested. 

Second. It enables them to control the volume 
of money ; and, in that way, they also control 
the price of labor and all its products. 

Third. By controlling the vast business interest 
of the country, through the specie basis system, 
they control largely the voting masses, and shape 
the policy of the nation in the interests of cen- 
tralization. 

Think you they will, willingly, yield up a 
power so vast and absolute? 

"But," say you, "I like specie for change." 



AS A NATION. 507 

Very well; if you prefer metal for small 
change have the money value stamped on some 
cheaper material than silver, so that it will not 
leave the country to pay balances, and thus 
shrink our volume of money, send prices down, 
and bring disaster upon the people. Would that 
not be sensible? 

But, methinks, your metallic change would 
go begging; for, in my judgment, this country 
never had anything to use for change which, on 
the whole, was as convenient as the scrip, which 
has now been replaced with chunks of metal, 
which are heavy to carry, and cannot be trans- 
mitted through the mails without great expense 
and much inconvenience. 

One more argument, which the goid gamblers 
urge, against an exclusive paper currency, is that 
it would drive all the specie out of the country. 

SHOULD SPECIE LEAVE THE COUNTRY. WOULD 
IT HARM US? 

Well, suppose it did, what of it? 

It leaves us any way when the balance of trade 
is against us, and when there is war, or danger of 
one, or any sudden scare, it hides. 

But would anybody be hurt by its leaving the 
country? "Why yes," says Shylock, kt it would 
ruin the nation." What demagfosruery ! The Gfold 
gamblers have told the people that our pro- 



'508 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

posed system of money was like the French assig- 
nats, the John Law money, theContinental money, 
and man}' other lies about finance, to keep them 
from investigating the subject. But they have told 
none more silly than that about the effects of 
specie leaving the country. The same story was 
told Dr. Franklin, and what did he say in reply? 
He said " if specie, leaving the country can ruin 
it, it is ruined now; for the specie is all gone." 
The balance of trade was then against the Col- 
onies, in favor of England, and the country was 
drained of its specie, and the people were with- 
out money. Industry was paralyzed. The pat- 
riotic Franklin, in spite of Shylock, was instru- 
mental in giving the people a paper money which 
did not rest on a specie basis, but which gave 
them such full and continued prosperity as they 
they had never known, under the. reign of specie. 
Then we know that, during our late civil war, and 
indeed for years after, we had no specie. Yet, 
while the volume of paper money was large, this 
people prospered as they never prospered before, or 
since, and as they never will again, till the resump- 
tion law is repealed and the volume of money is 
restored to what it ought to be. How do those 
bank-money men dare to howl such silly false- 
hoods into the ears of this people? Do they 
think they have no common sense? Does it not 
require a vast amount of that rascally commodity 



AS A NATION. 509 

called cheek, to enable a man to assert that, 
should specie leave this country it would ruin it, 
when the most prosperous period this nation ever 
enjoyed, was when we did not use specie at all? 
Had not the history of other nations demon- 
strated the total unfitness of the so-called precious 
metals for money, our late war would have 
demonstrated that unfitness. When they were 
most wanted, they could not be found. Why do 
the people bother with a money which serves 
them so imperfectly, in times of peace, and hides 
away from them entirely in time of war? Why 
do they not adopt the money which served them 
nobly, in the hour of their most urgent necessity? 
To talk about the unfitness of paper money, when 
it carried us through that dreadful season of peril 
and war, when specie had fled across the sea, or 
was concealed and could not be coaxed from its 
hiding place, is to exhibit a deplorable ignorance, 
lack of common sense, or a wonderful capacity 
for reckless lying. 

THE OBJECTION URGED. 

It has been urged against my proposed s}'stem 
of money, that it looks to too great an interfer- 
ence with private matters, and the business con- 
cerns of the people, by the general government, 
and that it is arbitrary in its character, etc. It 
is asserted that the volume of money, and the 



5IO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

rates of interest, ought to be left to be regulated 
by individual interest the laws of trade, supply 
and demand, etc. 

ANSWER TO THE OBJECTION. 

To show you with what poor grace such 
arguments and assertions come, from bankers 
and bullionists, I will place before you a bit of the 
late history of their system of banking, as given 
by their own organs, which ought to, and will, 
destroy the force of all such sophistry, in the 
minds of honest thinkers, who shall become 
acquainted with the following facts. On the 
13th of November, 1880, the New York 
Tribune published the following editorially: 



" Money is unusually easy for the season. The banks 
continue to report expanding loans. The loans are 
$324,970,000, the largest ever reported in the city. Un- 
questionably, the condition of the banks is now im- 
measurably safer than it ever was with a depreciated 
and irredeemable legal tender basis. The fact that the 
prudent bankers of this city do not shrink from ex- 
panding their loans when the reserve is so little in ex- 
cess of legal requirements shows what a vast confidence 
in specie payments have supplied, and the moderate rate 
of interest which prevails is proof that the confidence 
of the bankers is not unfounded." 

Here, you observe, is a very flattering account 
of the condition of the banks and business, under 



AS A NATION. 5 1 1 

the specie basis system. Prudent bankers are 
expanding their loans, low rates of interest pre- 
vail, and everything is most glorious. Fellow- 
citizens, do you not remember the sudden and 
disastrous interference of the banks, with the 
business interests of the country, immediately 
following that glowing statement of the Tribune? 
Of the effect of that interferene, I will let the 
Tribune tell its own story. On the 15th of 
December following (only one month later) the 
Tribune spoke as follows: 

"The banks of this city have made a creditable effort 
to set themselves right. Loans were contracted, 
$11,741,900, last week, in part by the payment of com- 
mercial paper falling due about December 4th, in place 
of which new loans were not effected, and in part by 
the calling of loans on stocks and bonds. In conse- 
quence the markets have been in a feverish state, with a gen- 
era/tendency to decline in prices. ' Three heavy failures in 
the coffee trade have disturbed confidence, although 
it should be understood that the condition of that trade 
is due to causes which do not affect other branches of 
business. 

" The contraction of loans and the stringency of the money 
market, however, did cause considerable reaction. Again 
and again it was supposed that permanent relief had 
been gained; now because important banks had ceased 
to send money to the west, then because private lend- 
ers showed a willingness to renew loans at moderate 
rates, and again because the committee of ways and 
means voted in favor of a 3 per cent, bond, or because 
n million or so came from Boston and Philadelphia. 



512 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

But temporary ease was in each case followed by- 
greater stringency, and there was more real pressure 
for money on Saturday, after a good bank statement, 
than there had been at any other time. Cotton dropped 
over 50 points from Saturday to Wednesday, and has 
since been unsettled. Prices of print cloths receded, 
and the sales of the week were only 40,000 pieces 
against a production of 150,000. Large auction sales 
of tea were made at reduced prices. Mess pork, hav- 
ing fallen in three previous weeks from $15.50 per bar- 
rel, dropped last week from $14.50 to $13.75 ; and there 
was a decline in lard. Wheat dropped during the 
week about 4 cents a bushel, corn about 2 cents, rye 2\ 
cents, and oats i\ cents. 

"The banks made no gain in reserve; their only im- 
provement was by contraction of loans. The imports 
of specie were $2,295,818, not including the 
$1,899,500 reported on Saturday; and the assay office 
paid out $2,811,168 during the week, while the treas- 
ury bought $1,118,000 in bonds; and yet the banks lost 
in specie and gained a little less in legal tenders. The 
treasury added little to its coin and nothing to its 
legal-tender balance during the week. Once more, in 
short, all the gold imported during the week has van- 
ished from sight. Within the past four weeks, the 
banks have contracted their loans, $31,010,800, and 
their deposits, $41,323,000, but have lost $10,917,200 
from their reserve." 

Does not the above extract, from the Tribune, 
show a perilous condition of things in this coun- 
try? In one short month, the banks of New 
York disturbed the whole business of the coun- 
try, and brought serious disaster upon some 



AS A NATION. 513 

parts of it. How did they do it? They did it 
by contracting the volume of currency. 

ADMISSION OF THE N. Y. TRIBUNE. 

Remember, the Tribune substantially admits 
this, in the following words: u The contraction 
of loans and the stringency of the money market, 
however, did cause considerable reaction." 

How came there to be a stringency of the 
money market? It came by the banks contract- 
ing their loans — that is, refusing to loan money 
to the people. By refusing to grant loans, the 
banks can produce the same effect, upon trade, 
as a contraction of the currency will produce. 

The Tribune says: " In four weeks the banks 
contracted their loans $31,010,800, and their 
deposits $41,320,000, but lost $10,917,200 from 
their reserve.'" Deducting the $10,917,200, 
which the banks lost from their reserve, which 
we will presume went into circulation, leaves a 
total contraction of $61,413,600. Of the effects 
of that contraction, I will let the Tribune speak 
further. In the monetary column of the issue, 
before quoted, the following appeared : 

"The markets, not only for bonds and stocks, but 
also for all the exportable products of the country, are 
waiting upon the money market. Exchange buyers are 
poor in funds, because of the long passages which the 
steamers, bringing to them the gold remittances for 



514 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

previous purchases, have been making, so that ex- 
change is now almost unsaleable. This has checked 
exports and unsettled the markets for grain, provisions, 
cotton, &c, and all this because a few private capital- 
ists and a few banks have improved the opportunity to 
exact unusual rates of interest for temporary loans." 

Now, what is proven by the above facts, 
quoted from the bullionists' own organ (the New 
York Tribune)} It is proven that the banks 
can and did check exports — that is to say, they 
hindered the flow of the products of your labor 
to foreign countries, whither they were being 
shipped and exchanged for money, and other 
things. It is proven that the banks can change 
the market price of all commodities, and stop 
the wheels of industry, whenever they see fit. 
They did do it, all as the Tribune says, " to 
exact a higher rate of interest for temporary 
loans." Let us hear the Tribune further. 

AGAIN. 

In the article last quoted, I rind the following: 

" None are so blind as not to perceive that if a bank 
has $500,000 in money, it receives a greater immediate 
advantage by loaning $250,000 of it at 6 per cent, plus 
a commission of 1-16 per day than by loaning the whole 
sum at plain 6 per cent. But it is a question if, when 
the effect of such a process is to embarrass the whole 
business of the country, check exports of merchandise 
and delay or wholly stop the further importation of 



AS A NATION. 515 

bullion, the act of the banks is not that of earning a 
sixpence now, to be rewarded later by the loss of a 
shilling." 

Observe how politely the Tribune informs the 
bankers and capitalists, that, by extorting such 
large profits from the people temporarily, they 
may be saving a sixpence now, to lose a shilling 
hereafter. As much as to say, u if you bankers 
and capitalists do not look sharp, these financial 
disasters and stagnations in trade and industry, 
which you are bringing upon the country, will 
arouse the people, so that they will begin to look 
into the matter; and if they do, they will find out 
how you do it, and will destroy your banking 
system, and thereby destroy your chances to rob 
them." 

THE N. Y. TRIBUNE AGAIN. 

I will requote the following from the Tribune : 
a Cotton dropped over fifty points from Saturday 
to Wednesday, and has since been unsettled. 
Prices of print cloths receded, and the sales of 
the week were only 40,000 pieces, against a pro- 
duction of 150,000." Think what a difference 
that change, in the sale of print cloths, would 
make to the manufacturers, and the hands 
employed by them. Assuming that the manu- 
facturers had been producing goods only up to 
the demand, that change would cut his sales 



516 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

down two-thirds, and operate to throw a large 
proportion of his employees out of employment, 
and lower the wages of those who were retained 
at work. 

In the instance to which I refer, in 1880, the 
money power soon let up on the people, and the 
stringency did not continue as it had done 
through the dreadful years from 1872 to 1879. 
If the stringency had continued, suffering would 
have been just as great as in the former period. 

The dreadful thought here, is that our people 
will permit a system to exist which makes it 
possible for the money power to bring such ter- 
rible suffering upon the country. 

N. Y. TRIBUNE AGAIN. 

I quote from the Tribune again : ' 

" Mess pork having fallen in three previous 
weeks from $15.50 per barrel, dropped last week 
from $14.50 to $13.75, and there was a decline 
in lard. Wheat dropped during the week about 
4 cents per bushel, corn about 2 cents, r}-e 4.1-2 
cents." 

This fall in prices, the Tribune admits, was 
because bankers and capitalists wanted more 
interest. 



AS A NATION. 517 

EFFECT OF CONTRACTING THEIR LOANS, BY 
THE BANKS, ON PRICES. 

The farmer will notice that that little trick of 
the banks lowered the price of his pork, in New 
York market, from $15.50 to $13.75. In other 
words, if he had fifty barrels of pork to sell his 
loss was $87.50. 

His wheat was lowered 4 cents per bushel. If 
he had a thousand bushels of wheat to sell, the 
banks wronged him out of $40. 

Fellow-citizens, do } T ou see nothing, in our 
present monetary system, that interferes with 
the business of life? 

Does Sh}'lock ? s monetary system leave the 
volume of money or rates of interest to be regu- 
lated by the demands of business ? 

In speaking of the same disaster in New York, 
on which I quoted the Tribune, the New York 
Daily Exchange said: 

TESTIMONY OF THE N. Y. DAILY EXCHANGE. 

' Notwithstanding the stringency of the money 
market, the banks reduced their circulation." 



THE NEW YORK MERCANTILE JOURNAL'S 

TESTIMONY. 



The New York Mercantile Journal^ on the 

same subject, spoke as follows: 



518 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" ' What about the future of the money market.' 
This is a question we are now beginning very often to 
hear. When for call loans men have paid one-eighth 
to one-fourth per cent, a day, or say, at the rate of ioo 
per cent, per annum, for a little while, they are very 
naturally anxious to know what is coming next." 

It is seen, by this quotation, that men were 
forced to pay at the rate of one hundred per 
cent, per annum for money! But, say you, u It 
was the demands of trade that s£nt interest up. n 
Let the following, from the same journal last 
quoted, answer you: 

" With this sharp contraction of loans by the banks, 
money can hardly be otherwise than in urgent demand." 

Here you see the banks, by refusing loans, 
intensify the demand for money, and are thus 
enabled to charge higher rates of interest 

TESTIMONY OF THE CHICAGO NEWS. 

The Chicago News, on the same subject, 
spoke as follows: 

" Some surprise has been manifested that in presence 
of the fact of such an intense demand for currency 
with which to transact the business of the country, the 
bank note circulation does not increase. It was con- 
tended that when the national bank system was made 
free to all who would purchase bonds, that it would 
always supply currency in such periods as the present. 



AS A NATION. 519 

But this claim of the friends of the system was evi- 
dently founded in error. On the contrary, in the face 
of the present intense demand for currency, the note 
circulation of the New York bank is being reduced. 
Week before last it was reduced $462,000." 

All the testimony I have quoted in answer to the 
point — that supply and demand should be left to 
regulate the volume of money, and the rates of 
interest — is drawn from the journals of the 
bullionists; and I submit to you that, if anything 
can be proven, whether it is not proven, that, 
under our present monetary system, supply and 
demand is not the regulating power at all, but, 
on the contrary, the banks and money-loaning 
capitalists regulate, at will, both the volume of 
circulation, and the interest to be paid on loans. 

TESTIMONY OF THE FINANCIAL CHRONICLE. 

I will close the evidence, on this branch of the 
subject, with a quotation from the Financial 
Chronicle, which, on the same subject and of the 
same disaster, spoke as follows: 

" The loss on the visible supply of cotton in this 
country alone is over #5,000,000 during the last two 
months. This fall in the current price of these great 
staples has been accompanied by a reduction in the 
quotation of all the articles related to them. It has 
extended to the stock in every factory, and the goods 
on every retailer's shelves. The country spent six 



520 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

months in marking up its goods and ' made ' millions; 
it has spent three months in marking down goods and 
* lost ' millions." 

THE BANKS AND MONEY-LOANERS AS DES- 
POTIC AS THE CZAR OF RUSSIA. 

The above quotation needs no comment. The 
evidence is overwhelming that, under our pres- 
ent monetary system, the banks and money- 
loaning capitalists exercise a power over the 
American people, and over the industries of 
the country, more absolute and despotic than 
the Czar of Russia exercises over the Russian 
Empire — only methods are different — that is all. 
The capitalist cannot deal as summarily with the 
American people as the Czar can with his sub- 
jects. But they can bring them to their terms 
just as effectually, by a manipulation of the cur- 
rency, which the people do not understand. 
Capitalists cannot, indeed; banish and send into 
exile their fellow citizens, but they can banish 
comfort from the homes of the people and drive 
their children to hunger for bread. Capitalists 
cannot issue an edict, prohibiting the people to 
speak in defense of their own rights; but, by con- 
tracting the currency, they can and do reduce 
hundreds of thousands of laborers to a condition 
where they dare not speak their sentiments, and 
must vote their employers' ticket, or be thrown 



AS A NATION. 52 1 

out of work and starve. Can you imagine a 
monetary system more despotic than this? It 
controls the people in a way they do not under- 
stand. They think they are enjoying liberty, 
while they are under the cruelest of despotisms. 
If the American people were governed by a mon- 
arch, whose word was law, and he should say to 
every farmer: " Sir, the price of the products of 
your farm must be lowered two-thirds ; r and to 
every merchant, " Sir, you must mark the price 
of your goods down;" and to every artizan at his 
bench, to every delver in the mines, to every 
laborer on the land, and to every sailor on the sea, 
u Sirs, your wages must be cut down." Would 
they not think it awful — would they not think it 
cruelty and despotism unbearable? 

I ask you, did not the capitalists produce those 
very results in 1873? 

Their own records so clearly prove this that 
doubt is impossible. 

Now, what difference does it make, to the 
people, whether the suffering comes through the 
edict of a monarch on his throne, or through the 
subtle influence of the bullionists, in banking insti- 
tutions and brokers' offices? 

The result was the same, the suffering just as 
severe and the despotism just as great. Through 
our present monetary system, the money-power 
can, at will, inflate or depress prices. It can 



522 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

force the merchant to mark down the price on 
his goods. It can compel the manufacturer to 
discharge the mechanic from his shop, and fill 
the land with tramps. It can block the wheels 
of industry, and send hunger and sorrow into the 
laborers' homes, limit the farmers income, and 
sweep our commerce from the seas. Liberty 
can no more live within such environments, than 
a lamb can live within the fatal coils of an ana- 
conda. 

In my judgment, when our people come to 
understand our present monetary system (and 
they soon will), they will supplant it with one. 
through which they can control both the volume of 
money, and the rates of interest. I also believe 
that, in the near future, the money of the Uuited 
States is to be a full legal tender paper money r 
receivable for all debts and dues, public and 
private, and having no reference to specie, resting 
solely upon the fiat of the government — that is 
its power to make money — the fiat of a govern- 
ment, whose power is upheld by fifty millions of 
loyal citizens, every dollar of whose property is 
pledged for its perpetuity, and every life ready 
to be sacrificed for its safety. Such a money- 
will rest upon the enduring credit of the wealth 
and business activity of the whole people. Such 
a money will give protection to labor, perma- 
nency to business, and perpetuity to our beloved 



AS A NATION. 523 

institutions, which are greatly imperiled by our 
present system of money. It would seem that 
such a system of money would commend itself 
to the judgment of thinking men, without the 
further indorsement of philosophers, or political 
economists. But, so thoroughly have the capi- 
talists instilled into the minds of the people the 
idea that a money cannot be good and safe with- 
out (as though it could with) a specie basis, and 
the notion, that none but fanatics ever dreamed 
of an unconvertible paper money, that I deem 
it well to quote a few more authorities to uproot 
the lie. 

Mr. John T wells, a prominent London banker, 
was before the Parliamentary committee, hereto- 
fore mentioned, to answer questions, touching 
the failure of Bank of the England, in 1847. He 
was questioned, and answered as follows: 

" What do you consider the advantage of an incon- 
vertible note, over a convertible note payable to bearer 
on demand? Ans. — It would prevent a drain of bullion 
when it is required for foreign trade, and it would give 
us what is very essential, a domestic currency, which is 
not influenced by any foreign transactions whatever. 
If France or America want gold, it ought not to inter- 
fere with our domestic currency. Our merchants and 
all our trade ought not to suffer because America wants 
gold. 

" Do you think that that currency would run the risk 
of ever being depreciated in value, that is to say, that 



524 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

inconvertible five-pound notes would not exchange for 
five sovereigns ? Ans. — I do not know as compared 
with sovereigns; that, I think, is of no consequence in 
the world ! We want it for internal commerce, and we 
want it to pay government our taxes." 

Now, read the following from David Ricardo, 
a very prominent English writer, on finance. 

When England was at war with France, and 
was using an unconvertible currency for money, 
Mr. Ricardo wrote as follows: 

"A well-regulated paper currency is so great an im. 
provement in commerce, that I should greatly regret if 
prejudice should induce us to return to a system of less 
utility. The introduction of the precious metals for 
the purposes of money may with truth be considered as 
one of the most important steps toward the improve- 
ment of commerce and the arts ot civilized life, but it 
is no less true, that, with the advance of knowledge and 
science, we discover that it would be another improve- 
ment to banish them again from the employment to 
which, during a less enlightened period, they have been 
so advantageously applied. ... By limiting the quan- 
tity of coin it can be raised to any conceivable value. 
[Hence its value does not reside in itself, but in its 
quantity.] It is on this principle that paper money 
circulates. Though it has no intrinsic value, yet, by 
limiting its quantity, its value in exchange is as great 
as an equal quantity of coin, or of the bullion in that 
coin. . . . On these principles it will be seen that it is 
not necessary that paper money should be p yable in 
specie to secure its value. ... It is evident, therefore, 
that if the government were to be the sole issuer of 



AS A NATION. 525 

paper money, instead of borrowing it of banks, the only 
difference would be with respect to interest : — the 
banks would no longer receive interest, and the gov- 
ernment would no longer pay it." 

Plainly this great thinker saw, early in the 
present century, that it was time that gold and 
silver were discarded as valueless for money. 
Gold and silver had been an improvement on 
bullets, axes, wood, and cattle, which had been 
used in a more barbarous age; but they have 
served their time, and cannot meet the demands 
of our greatly increased commerce and higher 
civilization. 

The following is from William S. Jevons, pro- 
fessor of Political Economy, in the Owens Uni- 
versity, England: 

" There is plenty of evidence to prove that incon- 
vertible paper money, if carefully limited in quantity 
can retain its full value. . . . But there is abundance 
of evidence to prove that the value of gold has under- 
gone extensive changes. Between 1789 and 1809 it fell 
46 per cent., as I have shown in a paper on variations 
in prices since 1782; from 1809 to 1849 it rose in value 
145 per cent." 

Read the following, from Scotland's great 
political economist, Prof. McCulloch. He speaks 
as follows: 

11 It had been supposed, previous to the suspension 
of the bank of England in 1797, that bank notes would 
not circulate unless they were convertible into cash. 



526 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

but the event showed, conformable to principles that 
have since been fully explained, that this was not really 
the case. . . . Though the notes of the bank of Eng- 
land were not publicly declared to be a legal tender, 
they were rendered so in practice by being received as 
cash in all transactions on account of the government 
and of the vast majority of individuals. For the first 
three years after suspension they actually bore a pre- 
mium in gold." 

Hear the great Scotch author, last quoted, on 
the difference in money, issued by banking cor- 
porations, and that issued by the government. 
He speaks as follows: 

"As no means have been found to limit the supply of 
promises to pay issued by private individuals, their 
value, it is plain, could not be maintained. But it is 
otherwise with the promissory notes issued by the state 
or by a company acting under its control. The quan- 
tity of such notes may be effectually limited; and we 
have seen that, when this is the case, intrinsic worth is 
not necessary to a currency, and that by properly lim- 
iting the supply of paper, declared to be legal tender, 
its value may be sustained on par with gold or any 
other commodity." 

Here is a word, from the same author, on the 
doing away with specie, both as money and as a 
basis for money: 

" Being issued in such quantities as to preserve its 
value relatively to the mass of circulating commodities 
nearly equal, the precious metals might be entirely dis- 



AS A NATION. 527 

pensed with, not only as a circulating medium, but also 
.as a standard to which to refer the value of such paper 
money." 

More authority on this point seems super- 
fluous; but I am determined, so far as authorities 
can do it, to uproot the old lie so often and so 
continuously told by the bullionists, viz: that 
paper money, issued in reasonable amounts, will 
depreciate unless it has specie for a basis. 

The following is from Bonamy Price, of 
England, Professor of Political Economy, at 
Oxford: 

"Experience has proved it that (inconvertible paper 
money) need not suffer any depreciation in value. . . . 
The public has a certain definite want for notes to use 
in the daily operation of buying and selling. It is plain 
that the prohibition to pay the notes can make no dif- 
ference in the extent of the use that exists for them ; so 
far as this reaches, it is immaterial, whether the notes 
will, or will not, be paid on demand. . . . Paper money 
has a further superiority of great importance over 
specie : its comparative cheapness, combined with equal 
efficiency. '' 

I will offer no more authorities to establish the 
fact that history and experience, as well as com- 
mon sense, prove that paper money, issued by a 
responsible government, and made a full legal 
tender for debt, is the safest and best money 
imaginable. 



528 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Now, as to she propriety of the government 
issuing money, I will quote a few authorities. 

Mr. J. S. Lloyd, one of England's highest 
authorities on the subject of finance, speaks as 
follows : 

"An adherence to sound principles would certainly 
lead to the conclusion that the issue of paper money 
should be confined to one body, intrusted with full 
power and control over the issue, and made exclusively 
responsible for the due regulation of the amount." 

I will now introduce a witness, whose evidence 
will be hard to resist, inasmuch as he testifies 
against his own pecuniary interests; for, should, 
his advice be taken, his business would be 
destroyed. The testimony of this witness is 
quoted. I quote from Peter Cooper's appeal 
to the people, referred to in a previous lecture 
Mr. Cooper introduces his evidence in the fc.Uow- 
ing words : 

' To the above we append the following suggestions 
from the late John Earl Williams, president of the Met- 
ropolitan bank of this city:" 

Here follows the advice of the great New 
York banker : 

" I would suggest: That congress assume, at once, 
the inherent sovereign prerogative of a government ' of 
the people, by the people, and for the people,' and ex- 



AS A NATION. 529 

ercise it, by furnishing all the inhabitants of the United 
States with a uniform national currency! Surely the 
people, and the people only, have a natural righ t to all 
the advantages^ emolument, or income that may inure 
from the issue of either $1 bonds with interest, or $10 
notes without, based on the faith and credit of the 
nation," 

Bankers understand that it is the right and 
duty of the government to furnish the people 
with money: but banking is a money-making 
business, and all bankers are not as honest and 
patriotic as Mr. Williams. 

A thousand pages and ten thousand quotations 
could not strengthen the evidence I have here 
given. It is all from the highest authority, and 
is in perfect a«cord with the whole tide of testi- 
mony, which sweeps, like a mighty river, 
through the vast field of political economic his- 
tory. 

I will digress a moment to answer a question, 
which I should consider unworthy of notice were 
it not that I have seen the dishonest hirelings of 
the money-power use it, with effect, among the 
people. They ask, " Do you crazy rlatists 
expect the government to furnish the people 
money without cost? You can not legislate 
money into the people's pockets. Do you not 
understand that money must represent value? n 

To the first proposition, I answer, No, we 
do not expect to legislate money into the pockets 



53° WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of the people. Furthermore, we intend to so 
enlighten them that they will not permit the 
capitalists to legislate money into their pockets, 
either. 

The members of congress, who endorsed the 
contraction policy, which lowered the price of 
the products of labor two-thirds, and increased 
the value of their salary that much, legislated a 
very large amount ot money, out of the people's 
pockets into their own, and into the pockets of 
the monied and income class generally. When 
Gen. Grant signed the bill, which doubled his 
own salary, he legislated twenty-five thousand 
dollars a year, out of the people's pockets into 
his own. 

That is a beautiful question for you, Mr. 
Capitalist, to ask — whether we intend to legislate 
money into the people's pockets? No, sir. But 
we do intend to establish a monetary system, 
that will destroy your power to legislate the 
people's money into your pockets, and that is 
what worries you. 

Now, as to the fact that money must repre- 
sent value, I agree with the goldite. And would 
not a paper dollar, issued by the government, 
represent the same value, in the hands of the 
people, that a gold dollar represents? Money 
cannot pass from the government to the people, 
without the people having first given value for it. 



AS A NATION. * 531 

To illustrate: In the United States treasury 
are two dollars — one of them paper, the other 
gold. The government says to two citizens: 

" If you will work for me one day, I will pay 
you one dollar each." 

The work is performed, and the government 
pays one with the gold dollar, the other with the 
paper dollar. 

Now, does not the paper dollar represent the 
same value, in the hand of the holder, that the 
gold dollar represents? Certainly it does. Each 
represents one day's work. One will pay the 
same amount of debt as the other. The gold 
dollar may cost ten days' work to take it from 
the mines; yet it is of no more value, as money, 
than the paper dollar. 

Having, as I believe, clearly demonstrated that 
the government ought to issue money and loan it 
to the people, I now ask that the government issue 
the money, and enlarge the volume, to at least 
twice its present size. It would then be less than it 
was in 1866, the season of your greatest pros- 
perity. We then had in circulation, of all kinds 
of money, as high as fifty-two dollars per capita. 
We now have less than twent}*-five. To double 
our circulation, would be to greatly increase our 
prosperity as a people. 

Do you ask how this money is to get into cir- 
culation? 



532 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Manifestly the government may put it into 
circulation by issuing it in loans" to the people as 
above suggested: by paying it out to its credit- 
ors and by expending it in necessary public im- 
provements. 

RELIEF FOR THE LABORER. 

To show that an increase in the volume of 
currency, is sure to increase the prosperity of the 
people, I will quote some authorities on the sub- 
ject. David Hume, the great English historian, 
and one of the world's greatest thinkers, says: 

"Accordingly we find that, in every kingdom into 
which money begins to flow in greater abundance than 
formerly, everything takes on a new face ; labor and in- 
dustry gain new life ; the merchant becomes more en- 
terprising, the manufacturer more diligent and skillful, 
and even the farmer follows his plow with greater alac- 
rity and attention. ... It is the oil which renders the 
motion of the wheels more smooth and easy. . . . The 
good policy of the government consists only in keeping 
it, if possible, still increasing, because by that means, 
it keeps alive a spirit of industry in the nation, and 
increases the stock of labor, in which consist all real 
power and riches. A nation whose money decreases is 
actually at that time weaker and more miserable than 
another nation which possesses no more money, but is 
on the increasing hand." 

Mr. Jevons, of the Owens University, England, 
says: 



AS A NATION. 533 

" Increasing the quantity of money must have, as I 
should say, has already, a most powerful beneficial 
effect. It loosens the country from the old bonds of 
debt and habit, as nothing else could. It throws in- 
creased rewards before all who are making and acquir- 
ing wealth, somewhat at the expense of those who are 
enjoying acquired wealth. It excites the active and 
skilful classes of the community to new exertions, and 
is, to some extent, like a discharge of his debts is to the 
the bankrupt and insolvent long struggling against his 
burdens." 

I will close my quotations, on this point, with 
one from Professor McCuiloch. The great Scotch 
Economist, in speaking of the increasing volume 
of money, says: 

" Like a fall of rain after a long course of dry 
weather, it may be prejudicial to certain classes, it is 
beneficial to an incomparably greater number, includ- 
ing all who are engaged in industrial pursuits ;. and is, 
speaking generally, of great national advantage." 

Fellow countrymen, your remedy is in a larger 
and more uniform volume of currency, with 
reduced rates of interest. The laborer may insti- 
tute his " Trade Unions," and organizations of a 
like character. I will not oppose them. I will 
not oppose anything that has a tendency to excite 
discussion on economic questions, for there is 
my hope for the perpetuity of our free institu- 
tions. The enlightenment of the people on those 



534 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

subjects, and that alone, can secure the continu- 
ance of this government, in its present form, 
another twenty-five years. 

But I would say to*the laborer and mechanic, 
so far as I am informed in regard to the working 
of your reform movements, you do not reach the 
basic principles underlying the difficulty which 
you seek to remedy. To give you permanent 
relief, there must be an increased and permanent 
demand created for the products of your labor. 
Why is the demand not greater now? Is it 
because the people do not want the goods which 
you manufacture? No; it is because they can 
not afford to purchase them. 

Here is a thought for you : When the balance 
of trade turned in our favor, a few } T ears ago, it 
brought more money into the countr} 7 . This 
enlarged the volume of money in circulation, and 
thereby increased the power of the people to 
purchase. This increased power to purchase 
gave rise to an increased demand for the products 
of labor, and that, in turn, created a demand for 
labor itself, and, therefore, gave employment to 
mechanics, artisans, laborers and producers of 
every kind. 

There is not one who reads this lecture, and 
whose memory runneth back, understandingly to 
1867, when our volume of money was large, 
who will not say that, if money was as plenty 



AS A NATION. 535 

and times as flush as they were then he would 
purchase twice as much as he does now. Let 
him remember that all, with very few exceptions, 
would do the same, and then he will scarcely 
doubt that people would, on the average, pur- 
chase at least one-third more than they do now. 
This would intensify the demands for manufac- 
tured goods and the products of every industry; 
and thus, fellow-citizens, would be opened a 
way for your relief. 

"But, 7 ' says the mechanic, "I know that, if 
there was an increased demand for the things 
that I manufacture, it would create a demand for 
labor. I could demand higher wages and get 
them; but the price, of the necessaries of life, 
would go up, and what better off would I be." 

Your condition now, as compared with your 
condition under the new regime, may be illus- 
trated by an anecdote, which Henry Clay used 
to relate, of a conversation he once had with an 
Irishman, in which the Irishman told Mr. Clay 
that he could buy as much in the old country for 
a sixpence, as he could here for a dollar. Mr. 
Clay asked him why he did not return to the old 
country. "But," said the Irishman, "the devil 
of it is to get the sixpence in the old country. 1 ' 
The Irishman's situation is illustrative of that of 
the mechanic. When money is plenty, wages are 
high, and provisions dear, the mechanic can live 



536 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

more comfortably, save more, and enjoy more, 
than he can when money is scarce, business 
moderate, and provisions low. In fact the only 
time, when the American laborer ever really flour- 
ished, was when our volume of money was large, 
and everything was high; and then the prudent 
toilers were surrounding themselves with the 
comforts of life, and building homes for their 
families. 

Then it was that Shylock, with his merciless 
contraction policy, arrested the toiler in the midst 
of his prosperity, threw him out of employment, 
banished happiness from the bosom of his family, 
made his days weary with anxiety, and his nights 
heavy with sadness. 

u But,''' you say, " if we intensify the demand 
for the products of our labor, that will make 
manufacturing more profitable : this will develop 
more machinery, and the supply will soon again 
be greater than the demand." 

This is a mistake. Our wants are almost 
infinite, and increase as our capacity to supply 
them increases. It required no more days' labor 
to clothe a fashionable lady, fifty years ago, when 
every stitch had to be set by hand, than it does 
now, when we have the sewing machine, with 
its more than ten times the sewing capacity of 
the fastest seamstress. 

Do you ask if we intend to flood the country 



AS A NATION. 



S37 



with paper money? This question is prepos- 
terous. No rational mind desires any such 
thing. I believe fifty dollars -per capita suffi- 
cient, and that the volume of circulation ought 
to be increased as the population increases, but 
never diminished. 

Shylock says the volume of money is governed 
by the demands of business. If his statement be 
correct, there might be ten thousand tons of 
paper money issued, yet it would not get into 
circulation, for the people would not touch it 
unless business demanded it; for no man would 
mortgage his land for money, and pay interest 
on it, to let it lay idle. 

I make this statement only to show that Shy- 
lock's pretended fears of inflation are inconsistent 
with his claim that, under the present system, 
the volume of money is regulated by the demands 
of business; for, if this is true, under his system, 
why would it not be true under ours? 

I do not propose to point out all the details 
which should attend the Franklinian system of 
money. My present purpose is to turn, as much 
as I may, the attention of the people in the direc- 
tion of a monetary system, under which, they 
can save the results of their toil. In connec- 
tion with the system, however, there must be a 
safe deposit for money. 

The manner in which depositors have lost their 
• 



538 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

money, under our present system, is sad to relate. 
Many a widow has deposited her last dollar in 
the bank for safe keeping, supposing it to be safe, 
and has called for it, only to find it gone, and the 
savings of a lifetime swallowed up, by a heartless 
banking corporation. 

In relation to the loaning of money by the gov- 
ernment, I would insist that the officers, who 
shall handle the funds, shall be elected by the 
people, as I insist that the postmasters even ought 
to be. Having said this much, fellow citizens, I 
will close with one more argument. 

The estimated wealth of the nation is ($30,000,- 
000,000) thirty billion dollars. The estimated 
increase varies with different authors. Some set 
it as low as one and one-half per cent., while the 
highest estimate I have seen, is three and one- 
half per cent. I will place it at the highest esti- 
mate. 

The annual increase in the wealth of the 
nation would then be ($1,050,000,000) one billion 
fifty million dollars. The debts of the people, of 
all kinds, public and private, are estimated, as I 
have stated in a former lecture, at ($20,000,000,- 
000) twenty billion dollars. Allowing the average 
interest on those debts, seven per cent., it would 
aggregate $1,400,000,000. 

The figures, tabulated, stand as follows: 



AS A NATION. 539 

The nation's wealth, - $30,000,000,000 

Increase, at 3 1-2 per cent., - - 1,050,000,000 

Indebtedness of the people, - - 20,000,000,000 

Interest on people's debt, at 7 per cent., 1,400,000,000 

The account, between the people and capital- 
ists, stands as follows: * 

The people paying, in annual interest, $1,400,000,000 
Increase in the nation's wealth, - 1,050,000,000 



Difference in favor of capitalists, $350,000,000 

The Hon. Gilbert De La Matyr, of Indiana, 
whom I quoted in a former lecture, states, as 
coming from official sources, that the state of 
Indiana — that is, the people of that state — fell 
short of keeping even with their indebtedness 
$16,000,000 in the year 1880. There is no more 
prosperous agricultural state in the Union than 
Indiana. Yet she fell behind sixteen million 
dollars in what the capitalists call the prosperous 
year of 1880. 

Now, my countrymen, if the above figures are 
correct — and the facts in regard to Indiana would 
indicate that they are approximately so — you are 
brought face to face with the startling fact that 
you are paying, to the creditor class, more in 
interest than there is being added to the wealth 
of the nation, by three hundred and fifty million 
dollars annually. 



540 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

In other words, the debtor class is paying 
in interest three hundred and fifty million dollars 
more, annually, to the creditor class than the- 
whole people are adding to the wealth of a nation. 

Now, if a farmer has a mortgage on his farm 
for two-thirds of its value, and his net annual 
income is only one hundred dollars, while 
the interest on the debt is one hundred and fifty 
dollars, it is only a question of time what will 
become of his farm. The length of time before 
it will pass into the hands of the mortgagee can 
be determined with mathematical certainty. 
The same is true of the property now in the 
hands of the people. Their property is mort- 
gaged, and very largely, to the fund-holding 
class — banks, trust and loan companies, insurance 
companies, etc. In spite of the best efforts of 
the people, those mortgages are growing larger, 
at the fearful rate of three hundred and fifty mil* 
lion dollars per annum. 

Now, sir, at that rate, in less than eighty-six 
years the debtor class will pay over to the fund- 
holding class the amount of the present wealth 
of the entire nation, and then they will owe the 
principal. 

Now, while I do not claim accuracy for these 
figures, yet, as I have before said, the indisput- 
ible facts in regard to Indiana show that they are 
within the range of probability. 



AS A NATION. 54 1 

The people are sinking beneath their burdens, 
and if the present monetary system is allowed to 
continue, the child is born who will live to see 
the masses of the American people bankrupt and 
the principal wealth of the nation in the hands 
of ten per cent of its population. 

Now, my countrymen, I ask you to stop and 
reflect upon the situation. Under the present 
centralizing processes, we shall soon be under the 
absolute control of a monied aristocracy, as des- 
potic as any that reign in the old world, and our 
laboring and producing classes will feel a poverty 
as cruel and crushing as that which afflicts poor 
Ireland to-day. 

Now, is there relief for the people, and can 
the danger to our country be averted? 

Yes. Relief can come to the people, and the 
danger to the country can be averted by enlarg- 
ing the volume of money and lowering the rates 
of interest. To lower the rates of interest from 
seven to three per cent, is to lighten the people's 
burdens eight hundred million dollars per annum. 
This would reverse the situation at once. It 
would change it from three hundred and fifty 
million dollars against the people to four hundred 
million in their favor; that is to say, the people 
would then gain four hundred million dollars per 
annum on their debts, whereas they now fall 
behind three hundred and fifty million. 



542 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" But," you ask, " would you pass a law com- 
pelling a man to receive three per cent, interest 
when you had contracted to pay him seven? " 

No: But I would have the government loan 
at three per cent., and enlarge the volume so 
that the debtor class can get money easier 
and pay their debts. Is there anything wicked 
about that? I would not have the people say 
to the bankers: "You must take a lower 
rate of interest than agreed upon." But I 
would have the people placed in a situation where 
they can say to the bankers: "Here is your 
money — take it, and, if you can, loan it at higher 
rates — we can get all we need, and have security 
for, of the government, at three per cent." This 
is all the bankers could honestly desire. It is 
paying them the debt and leaving them to get 
all they can from those who wish to deal with 
them. The sun, in mid heavens, on a clear day, 
is not more visible to the eye than is the fact visi- 
ble to the understanding, that under our present 
monetary system, labor is pouring its hard-earned 
treasures into the lap of capital, and our country 
hastening to her downfall. 

Here I will requote Professor McCulloch. In 
speaking of the effects of an increasing volume of 
money, he said: 

"Like a fall of rain after a long course of dry 
weather, it may be prejudicial to certain classes, it is 



AS A NATION. 543 

beneficial to an incomparably greater number, includ- 
ing all who are engaged in industrial pursuits ; and is, 
speaking generally, of great national advantage." 

To double the present volume of money would, 
in effect, be tp lower the indebtedness of the 
country one-half. Would it be honest to do so? 
In your answer consider the fact that more than 
two-thrVds of the present indebtedness is directly 
or indirectly the result of a contraction of the 
currency, brought about by the very men who 
now hold most of those obligations against the 
people. 

The capitalist, by procuring this contraction 
of the currency, rendered money dear, and 
thereby practically changed those obligations, 
which were originally payable in cheap money 
to obligations payable in dear money; and, 
as a result, has secured to himself an incredi- 
ble amount of the people's property, and 
much of their hard earnings, for the last fifteen 
years. Would it be wrong to change those 
obligations back again, which, by the doubling of 
the volume of money, would be accomplished? 
This it would accomplish, because it would 
make it twice as easy for the debtor to get 
money to pay his debts, for it would operate to 
double the price of what he has to sell, be it 
labor or property. 

I hold that to double the volume of currency 



544 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

would be right, upon every principle of equity, 
between man and man. It would also be in the 
interest of ninety-five per cent of the American 
people, a consideration which ought to be well 
weighed by every person who understands the 
nature of Republican institutions, and who believe 
that government should be administered so as to 
confer the greatest good upon the greatest 
number. 

The last and highest motive which I would 
offer to the patriotic citizens of America, for the 
adoption of the Franklinian system of money, is, 
that it will save the life of this Republic, and 
nothing else can. 

May the hours fly, and the days hasten, till 
this all-important fact is understood by my 
countrymen ! 



THE NEW ERA IN REPUBLICAN 
GOVERNMENT. 



THE DAWN OF DAY; 



The Laborers Only Hope, 



By FREEMAN O. WILLEY 



1883. 
GEO. C. HACKSTAFF, Publisher, 

Singer Building, Fifth and Locust Sts. 

SAINT LOUIS. 

4 



W* 



PREFACE. 



Man was made to labor, is the voice of God r 
through nature. To shun it, is to invite disease, 
decay, and moral death. To oppress it, is to stifle 
the noblest aspirations of the human soul. To 
encourage and protect it, is the highest duty of 
government. 

That our government fails in this duty because 
the mind of the people cannot act directly upon 
it, I verily believe. To assist in removing the 
obstacles that lie in the way of the full and per- 
fect realization of all that labor has a right ta 
expect, or can reasonably hope for, through the 
government, is the object of this work. 

F. O. WlLLEY. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the vear 1883, bv Freeman (K 
Willey, in the office of the Libiarlan of Congress, at Washington, D. GV 



THE NEW ERA IN 
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 



PART II. 



THE NATURE OF OUR PRESENT GOVERNMENT. 

THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD SHOULD BE IN EVERY 
POST OFFICE, 25— CIVIL OFFICERS OF THE GOVERN- 
MENT SHOULD BE ELECTED BY THE DIRECT VOTE 
OF THE PEOPLE, 29-THE VETO POWER SHOULD BE 
TAKEN FROM THE PRESIDENT, 45— THE VETO 
POWER SHOULD BE PLACED IN THE HANDS OF 
THE PEOPLE, 50— THE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE THE 
PROFITS ARISING FROM THE LOANING OF THEIR 
OWN MONEY, 154— EQUAL RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES 
FOR ALL, 161. 

It has ever been the argument of despots that a 
popular government is always in a turmoil — like 
the troubled sea, etc. This turmoil is presumed 
to arise from the fact that, in a republic, the 
people are allowed to choose their own rulers, 
who are supposed to represent what monarchists 
are pleased to denominate the fickle will of the 
populace, and, therefore, cannot be depended 
upon for a steady and strong government. That 
such opinions are gaining ground in this country 
to an alarming extent is too plain a truth to need 
demonstrating, and the yielding condition of the 



1 6 THE NEW ERA IN 

public mind appears favorable to its growth. 
The people seem to have become discouraged. 
They admit that our liberties are curtailed, and 
even threatened with overthrow. But, they say, 
money is all-powerful. If we elect a man in our 
interest, the capitalists buy him; and what are 
we to do about it ? 

This question is asked almost daily by more 
than three-fourths of the voters of the United 
States. How shall we answer it, and what have we 
with which to check the painful tendency toward 
centralization and the merciless march of the 
money power ? Shall we offer the old • Demo- 
cratic party as a remedy ? It is very willing to 
be offered. It would gladly seize the reins of 
power. But we have no guarantee that it would 
give better security to business, or better protec- 
tion to free institutions, than the Republican 
party is giving. 

Shall we offer the Greenback party ? It has 
some noble reformatory principles in its platform. 
Its ascension to power would undoubtedly 
shift much of the burden of taxation from the 
shoulders of the poor to the shoulders of the 
rich, where it belongs. But what guarantee 
have we that the Greenback party, once 
entrenched in a hundred thousand offices, will 
not become as corrupt as other parties have. 

None, whatever. Human nature is much the 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 7 

same in all parties. Money, place and power 
are very tempting. Should the Greenback 
party get into power, it would be as loath as 
any other party to yield that power. Then 
comes a desperate struggle to remove it; the 
same battles must be fought over again, with the 
same fearful odds against the people, viz. : the 
dominant party in possession of a hundred thou- 
sand offices, with their influence extending to the 
remotest corners of the United States, control- 
ling the avenues of intelligence, and misleading 
the people. 

By what means, then, shall we secure safety 
to our institutions and continued prosperity to 
our people, if not through one of the present 
political organizations ? I answer, by organizing 
a party with a platform of principles, the triumph 
of which will destroy the power of the capital- 
ists to secure class legislation by the corrupt use 
of money. But how can this be done ? 

To answer this question properly, we need to 
understand precisely what kind of a government 
we are now living under. I will begin the 
inquiry with a quotation from Abbott's Life of 
Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson, who 
succeeded Franklin as Minister to France, is 
spoken of by Mr. Abbott as follows: 

11 He saw and fully comprehended the misery under 
which millions of the French peasantry were groaning. 



1 8 THE NEW ERA IN 

And this led him to the conviction, that no people 
could be safe unless the government were placed in 
their own hands." 

An attempt was made to establish our own 
government upon this idea of Jefferson's, and a 
very long step was taken in that direction. 
Indeed, many did and do now believe that it was 
accomplished as intended. The popular idea of 
the American Government is represented in the 
following, which I find in Bancroft's Footprints 
of Time, and analysis of our government, page 
401 : 

"The national congress is a body of men represent- 
ing and acting in the place of the people. They are 
elected by the people to enact laws for the public good 
— to do all, and no more nor less — than the people would 
do if it were possible for them to assemble in one great 
body and make the laws by which they wish to be 
governed." 

The above quotation expresses the American 
theory of our government, but in practice it 
works very differently. Congress does not do 
within gun shot of what the people would do if 
they could all assemble together and make their 
own laws. Read the following: 

THE LAND GRANT. 

11 The land grant of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
consists of 12,800 acres to each mile of track through 
Minnesota, and 25,600 acres per mile through Dakota, 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 9 

Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon—the branch 
to Puget Sound having the same grant as the main 
line. The average for the whole length of the road 
.and branch is over 23,000 acres per mile, and the total 
exceeds fifty millions acres. Of the quality of these 
lands it is enough to say that they lie in the richest 
portion of that fertile new Northwest described in 
another part of this advertisement. Of the company's 
ten million acres in Montana, General Potts, present 
Governor of that territory, says : ' " The Northern 
Pacific Railroad will open up the richest country in 
agricultural and mineral resources on the American 
Continent, and if the people East and in Europe could 
-see the rich land grant the road has, the company's 
bonds would not remain in market ninety days.' " Gov- 
ernor Stevens, who repeatedly passed over the route, 
estimates that fully four-fifths of the Northern Pacific 
Railroad grant is good for cultivation or grazing, while 
much of the remainder is in the mountain belt, and is 
covered with valuable timber or filled with the precious 
metals. With the road built through the midst of these 
Sands, what is their money value? The lands of the 
Union Pacific thus far sold have averaged $4.46 per 
acre ; the school lands of Minnesota, $6.30 per acre ; 
the lands of the Illinois Central Railroad grant, $11 per 
acre. At even the average of $4 per acre the lands of 
the Northern Pacific Railroad will pay for its construc- 
tion and equipment, and leave the road free from debt, 
and one-half the lands unincumbered in the company's 
possession. At only $2.50 per acre, goverment price, 
these lands will build and equip the road, leave it free 
of debt, and place a surplus of twenty-five million dol- 
lars in the company's treasury." 

The above quotation is from Poor's Manual 



20 THE NEW ERA IN 

of the Railroads for 187 1-2, a work written in 
the interest of railroads. And here it is admitted 
that the land given to the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road Company, at government price, would 
build and equip the road, leave it free from debt r 
and place twenty-five million dollars in the 
treasury of the company, while at four dollars 
per acre it would build and equip the road, and 
leave one-half of the land, unincumbered, in the 
hands of the company. The company's land,, 
however, up to that date (1872), had sold at 
$4.46 per acre. But at the moderate price of 
$4 per acre the unincumbered half of the fifty 
million acre grant would be worth to the com- 
pany one hundred million dollars. 

Now, look at these figures, and answer. Does 
any man, in his senses, believe that the people 
would vote away their property to that extent,, 
could they assemble together and make the laws 
themselves ? 

Again: Would they have repealed the law 
imposing a tax on incomes, as Congress did ? 

In 1868 the government received over thirty- 
million dollars tax from incomes. This tax was 
collected from about two hundred and fifty 
thousand persons, who were receiving the enor- 
mous income of eight hundred million dollars 
per annum, or about eight-tenths of the net gain 
of the entire country. Had the people had 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 21 

the making of the laws themselves, that income 
tax law would have been upon the statute book 
to-day, and the people's burdens would have 
been that much lighter. 

Again : Do you think the five-twenty bonds 
would have been made payable in gold in 1869, 
as they were, if the people had the making of 
laws direct ? No, sir; they would have inquired 
into the matter, understood it, and defeated the 
devilish scheme of robbery. All through the 
records of Congress are to be found sentiments 
like those of John Sherman, late Secretary of the 
Treasury. In a speech in the senate, February 
27, 1868, he said: 

" I said that equity and justice were amply satisfied 
if we redeem these bonds at maturity in the same kind 
of money, of the same intrinsic value it bore at the 
time they were issued. I said that gentlemen may 
reason about the matter over and over again, and they 
cannot come to any other conclusion — at least, that 
has been my conclusion, after the most careful deliber- 
ation. " 

The above were the sentiments of Sherman 
before he deserted the people and went over to 
the money power. It is common sense that no 
man can resist. But the so-called credit strength- 
ening act was passed in Washington. The people, 
knowing they could not vote on it, did not seek 
to know much about it, and the records not 



22 THE NEW ERA IN 

being easily accessible, the press, in the interest of 
the bondholder, kept them blind. That one act of 
Congress transferred more than six hundred 
million dollars of hard-earned money from the 
pockets of the people to the pockets of the bond- 
holder, a sum so vast that the interest alone 
used annually, for the benefit of the poor, would 
banish destitution from the land forever. (For 
abundant testimony, see Part First, page 240.) 
The last act of Congress, to which I shall refer, 
to prove that the people are not truly repre- 
sented there, is that by which it authorized the 
Secretary of the Treasury to shrink the volume 
of money then in circulation, and which shrink- 
age in the volume of money stagnated business, 
filled our streets with tramps, sent prices down 
two-thirds, and brought indescribable suffering 
upon our country. In support of the above 
statement, and for the benefit of those who may 
not read part first of this work, I will requote 
from page 301 a report of a committee con- 
sisting of prominent members of the House and 
Senate, and which committee rendered the fol- 
lowing report in 1877: 

"The true and only cause of the stagnation in indus- 
try and commerce now everywhere felt, is the fact 
everywhere existing of falling prices caused by a 
shrinkage in the volume of 'money." 

The above ought to set the question at rest 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 23 

as to what caused the fall of prices and conse 
quent disaster ot 1873, and the suffering that 
followed. And the records of Congress contain 
an abundance of testimony just as strong, showing 
that a fall of prices must be the result of a shrink- 
age in the volume of money. I am tempted to 
requote one more authority, from page 295, part 
first. When the shrinkage of the volume of 
money was under discussion in the Senate, John 
Sherman spoke as follows: 

" It is not possible to take this voyage (meaning the 
shrinkage of the volume of money) without the sorest 
distress to every person except a capitalist out of debt 
or a salaried officer or annuitant. It is a period of 
loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, suspen- 
sion of enterprise, bankruptcy and disaster. . . . 
It means the fall of all agricultural productions, with- 
out any very great reduction of taxes." 

Now, I ask if the people could be induced to 
vote for a law which they had reason to believe 
would bring bankruptcy and disaster upon the 
country, and destroy their own prosperity and 
happiness, by lowering the price of their labor 
and all its products ? No, sir. But Congress 
did it. Congress was willing to lower the price 
of labor and all agricultural productions because 
that body was made up largely of moneyed men, 
and the more the price of labor and its products 
was lowered the more the congressman's money 



24 THE NEW ERA IN 

would buy. Hence the interest and policy of 
moneyed men was to shrink the volume of money. 
But, sir, had the question of shrinking the volume 
of money been submitted to the people they 
would have investigated the matter, and when 
they had learned (as they surely would) that a 
shrinkage in the volume of money meant a 
shrinkage in the price of their labor and all its 
products, they would have defeated the measure 
by an overwhelming majority. 

No further argument is needed to prove that 
the laws, by which we are governed, are not 
made as they would be could the people all 
assemble together and make them by a direct 
vote. On the contrary, our laws are made in 
the interest of capital and centralization. Under 
the present regime our people are as helpless in 
the hands of the money power, as a child in the 
arms of its nurse. Our law makers are so far 
removed from us as to be within easy reach of 
capital. Hence the people's interests are ignored 
at Washington, while those of capital are care- 
fully guarded. Our financial system is so 
arranged that the banks can enlarge and contract 
the volume of money in circulation, send prices 
up and down, pocket the difference, and thus 
harvest the earnings of the people without 
hinderance. How are we to protect ourselves? 
Shall we adopt Jefferson's plan: 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 25 

" Take the power to issue money from the banks and 
restore it to the government and the people where it 
belongs." 

That would be right. But the government 
(Congress) once contracted the volume of money 
in the interest of the rich, and brought the coun- 
try to the very verge of ruin. Thus proving 
that Congress even, cannot be trusted to control 
the volume of money or make laws for the 
people. Monied men, in and out of that body, 
can influence it to do great harm before the 
people can interfere to prevent it. What then 
can we do to save ourselves from the merciless 
clutch of avarice? The people understand that 
they cannot all assemble together and make the 
laws themselves, and they believe that our repre- 
sentatives can be bribed or influenced by the 
money power. Hence, they cannot be induced 
to move resolutely in the direction of reform. 
They are bewildered, and know not where to go. 
No political party offers them a complete remedy. 

FIRST PLANK OF THE NEW PLATFORM. 

The only way to induce the voting masses to 
engage earnestly in a reform movement is to 
organize a party upon a platform of principles, 
the triumph of which will place the government 
so completely in the hands of the people as to 
make it impossible for the money power to 



26 THE NEW ERA IN 

thwart their purpose. To this end I would sug- 
gest that the first plank in the new platform 
demand that the records of Congress be placed 
in every postoffice in the United States. This 
can be done at a cost of a fraction of a cent for 
each citizen of the United States, a sum too 
trifling to be weighed against the mighty results 
that must follow. Place the Congressional 
Record in every postoffice, and our representa- 
tives will be obliged to face their own words and 
acts at every hearthstone in the land, and every 
law proposed or passed by them will be discussed 
in every school-house in the United States. It 
will destroy at once and forever the power of a 
partisan press and demagogues to deceive the 
people. Speeches made in Congress in the 
interest of the people are almost entirely ignored 
by the press, or so garbled as to entirely mis- 
lead the people as to their real contents. Our 
metropolitan newspapers are almost entirely 
under the control of the money power, and the 
minor newspapers are dependent upon them for 
the congressional news. But were it otherwise, 
easy access to the congressional records would 
still be necessary to intelligent voting. News- 
papers cannot afford space for a complete report 
of the proceedings of Congress. 

There must be* much abbreviation. An 
editor may be honest, and believe himself to be 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 27 

giving a correct summary of the debates in Con- 
gress. Yet he sees through his own eyes, and 
views every subject from his own standpoint. He 
only reports that which he deems important. So, 
of course, that which he deems unimportant his 
readers do not see. 

To illustrate: In the year 1830, in the Ameri- 
can Senate, Col. Hayne, of South Carolina, 
delivered a speech of great power and eloquence. 
It was a savage attack upon the political princi- 
ples of New England, as well as a very able 
defense of the doctrines then prevalent in the 
South. Daniel Webster replied in a speech that 
in some respects, has no parallel in the records 
of parliamentary debate. It was a retort of 
marvelous power, as well as a very strong 
defense of the political doctrines of New England, 
as illustrated by the votes of her representatives 
in Congress. It also did much to allay the feel- 
ings of sectional animosity, then rife in many 
parts of the country. 

Now, do you believe that there was one editor 
friendly to Mr. Hayne in all the South, who 
could have given his readers an unbiased account 
of Mr. Webster's speech, on the day of its 
delivery in the Senate. 

An honest editor might have tried, but he 
would have failed, from the fact that the senti- 
ments expressed in the speech were contrary to 



28 THE NEW ERA IN 

his own views, and consequently he could not 
possibly feel the force of the arguments as he 
would had he not been imbued with opposite prin- 
ciples. The same was undoubtedly true of editors 
friendly to Webster. Arguments which Mr. 
Hayne had prepared with great care, and which, 
from his standpoint, were unanswerable, Mr. 
Webster's friends would regard as the merest 
bosh, and not worth reporting. Hence it will 
be seen that an editor may be ever so honest, 
and yet incapable of giving his readers an 
unbiased summary of the debates in Congress. 
Now, add to this the further and stronger argu- 
ment that, as a rule, the editors of the metro- 
politan press are capitalists, or in the employ of 
capitalists, who are directly interested in mis- 
leading the people, and the distorted condition of 
our congressional news is easily accounted for. 
As a rule, the reporters would not, if they could, 
nor could they, if they would, give such a report 
of the speeches and proceedings of Congress as 
the people need. Thus no permanent step can be 
taken in the direction of reform, and American 
liberty can have no sure basis, while the people 
are obliged to depend upon a partisan press and 
unscrupulous politicians for a knowledge of the 
doings of their representatives in Congress. 
Then, how imperative the demand, and how 
overwhelming the argument, for the placing of 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 29 

the Congressional Record in every postoffice 
for the inspection of everybody. It will mark 
a new era in American politics. It will do much 
to put our law-makers on their good behavior. 
It will be a bombshell in the camp of the money 
power, and a mighty barrier to the progress of 
centralization and despotism. Let us have it. 

SECOND PLANK IN THE NEW PLATFORM. 

I would suggest that the second plank in the 
new platform demand that all civil officers of 
the government be elected by a direct vote of the 
people; and that any officer so elected may be 
removed from office before the expiration of his 
term by a two-thirds vote of those who elected 
him, and also that his successor be chosen by a 
majority vote, as in the rirst instance. This 
proposition is pregnant with much meaning. It 
will hardly be questioned that the one great duty 
of the hour is to make every man realize his 
individual responsibility as an American citizen, 
and to make him conscious of his power in the 
government. The way to do this is to bring the 
government near to him, that his vote may act 
directly on the government and react directly on 
him; in other words, make him feel immediately 
the effects of his own vote. The one great cause 
of the present depraved and alarming condition 
of American politics is that so many people do not 



3<3 THE NEW ERA IN 

realize their own responsibility in the matter of 
voting. This lack of conscious responsibility is 
due to the fact that their ballot is too remote and 
uncertain in its effect upon the government and 
voter. Under the present regime one's vote is 
likely to bring a result quite opposite to the one 
intended. There are too many chances to thwart 
the purpose of the voter. How often I have heard 
the remark: "It is no use to vote. The money 
power controls the whole political machinery of 
the government, captures the leaders, and uses 
all political parties to promote its own interests,, 
and we can't help ourselves." 

We can help ourselves. But in order to do 
so, we must take possession of the tools by which 
the money power controls political parties. 
They are ours by an inherent right, and we 
should not permit the capitalists to hold them 
and use them to oppress us. One of the most 
potent means now used in the interest of capital 
and centralization, and against labor and Demo- 
cratic government, is the appointing power. The 
people should assume, at once and forever, their 
natural right — to elect all the civil officers of the 
government by their own direct vote. When 
a thing is done by proxy there is danger that 
the original intent will not be carried out. 
When you entrust your business to an agent r 
even if he be honest, there is a chance for you to- 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 3 1 

be misrepresented and thwarted in your purposes. 
It is an old maxim, the truth of which is self- 
evident, that the safest way to do business is, to 
do it yourself. If this be true in the ordinary 
business relations of life, how forcibly true in the 
peoples' relation with the government, which are 
of a tenfold higher character, and, in which 
from the very nature of the case, misrepresenta 
tion is much more liable to occur. In mercan 
tile transactions, and, indeed, all business trans 
actions, conducted by individuals or corporations 
agents are not only appointed directly by the 
employers, but must account to them directly for 
the manner in whch they transact the business 
intrusted to their care. Not only is the agent 
obliged to render a correct account, but he is 
liable to be discharged at any time for negligence, 
incompetency or any cause which the employer 
may deem sufficient. Hence he is not only 
influenced by his duty to his employer, but by 
the ever-present danger of loss of employment, 
his master can reach him the ver}' day he ceases 
to be a profitable servant. 

The relation of the principal and agent, in the 
ordinary transactions of life, are such as to com- 
pel the agent to the strictest economy in business, 
and to use the whole power of his position in the 
interest of his employer. 

The same relations ought to exist between the 



32 THE NEW ERA IN 

people and those who enter the civil service of 
the government, but they do not. The man who 
enters the civil service by appointment, is not 
directly responsible to the people for his conduct 
in office. But it may be said he is responsible to 
those who are responsible to the people. So 
what is the difference, whether those in the civil 
employ of the government, are elected by the 
people or appointed by those who are? There 
is a very wide and very important difference. 
The appointing power places the officer appointed 
one remove from his real master. 

It places a mighty power between the people 
and their immediate servants. This is wrong 
and dangerous; is wrong, from the fact that it 
takes from the people the power to choose their 
own servants. It is dangerous because it tends 
to monarchy. There is in it too much of the 
principle upon which despotisms rest securely 
beyond the reach of their oppressed subjects. It 
ignores one of the dearest rights of mankind, viz: 
That of absolute self-government. The practice 
of placing the officers of the government beyond 
the immediate touch of their rightful masters, 
is a child of a darker age than I believe this to 
be. It is a relic of barberism born of a fear of 
the just ]k)wer of the people. 

Neither office nor power capable of delaying 
the action of the people, for any considerable 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 33 

length of time, should be permitted to stand 
between them and their servants. The people 
are the rightful repository of all political 
power in the government, and the only safe guar- 
dians of their own interests and liberties. Hence, 
I hold any principle of government to be wrong 
that authorizes the exercise of authority over 
them that does not emanate directly from them, 
and is not directly responsible to them. The 
bad results flowing naturally from our present 
system of civil service are visible all over this 
country. 

For example: a hundred thousand officers of 
the government, ostensibly representing the whole 
people, yet all appointed from one political party, 
and all deeply interested in perpetuating the rule 
of that party, and naturally enough, for upon the 
continued rule of that party depends their con- 
tinuance in office — in other words, their bread 
and butter. Then, too, should the government 
pass under the control of another party, the evil 
is not remedied; the same policy will continue. 
The present incumbents will simply walk out 
and let another hungry crowd walk in, with the 
same inducements to use the power of their 
position to perpetuate the reign of the party that 
gave them those positions. 

Our people, knowing as they do that the 
officers in the civil service are not immediately 



34 THE NEW ERA IN 

under their control, and cannot be reached 
directly by them, are less watchful and know less 
about that important branch of public service than 
they would have known if they had had immediate 
control of the officers, as they ought. The result is, 
there is much corruption and tyranny emanating 
from the civil service that could not exist if the 
people were to choose their own servants. The 
placing of men in office in a way other than by a 
direct vote is a disregard of the people's rights, 
and it gives the wealthy few an advantage over 
the many, which they ought not to have. 

As a rule, the appointments in the civil service 
are secured by rich men and those who occupy 
favored positions. The people are not consulted 
in the matter at all, but are generally insulted 
b}' the appointment of some one who is obnoxious 
to them. The appointee is very likely to be some 
one who stands high as a ward politician. In other 
words, has done effective electioneering, not in 
the interest of the people, but in the interest of 
the appointing power, or those who have influ- 
ence with that power. 

An important thought, and one very pertinent 
to this discussion, is suggested by a newspaper 
sketch of the late Thurlow Weed, in which the 
writer attributes to his hero many admirable 
traits of character. 

From the account given, it appears that at 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 35 

some period in Mr. Weed's life, a certain man 
did him a great personal favor, and that in after 
years he sought his friend and rewarded him 
with a government office. This shows the dele- 
terious effects of the appointing system, both 
upon Mr. Weed and the people. The offices in 
the civil service rightfully belong to the people, 
and Mr. Weed had no right to use them to 
reward personal favors. It his friend really did 
him a favor, for which money would have been 
a suitable reward, then it was his duty to reward 
him from his own private purse immediately, and 
not let his deserving friend go unrewarded until 
he could secure for him a public office, and thus, 
in effect, pay his private debt with the people's 
money. There is another useful thought sug- 
gested by this transaction: that which Mr. Weed 
regarded as a great personal favor, the people, 
had they have known the bottom facts in the 
case, might have regarded as a great public 
wrong. It may be that this friend assisted Mr. 
Weed in thwarting the will of the people. If this 
view of the case be correct (and I doubt not that 
those who are familiar with the real history of 
that adroit and not over-scrupulous politician 
will concede to be as likely as any) then the act 
was infamous; for in such case he was not only 
in effect paying his private debt with the public 
money, but he was compelling the people to 



2,6 THE NEW ERA IN 

accept and pay for the services of a man who 
helped to defeat them. 

Is more argument needed to prove the great 
wrongfulness, danger and despotism of the appoint- 
ing system. It gives the partizan and unscrupu- 
lous politican power to reward his friends for 
dirty work in political campaigns from the public 
treasury. It gave General Grant an opportunity 
to appoint partizan friends and relatives to office^ 
even down to the remotest cousin, and induced 
him to make a desperate attempt to violate a 
time honored custom, that he might make A. T\ 
Stewart (who had given him a house at Long 
Branch), Secretary of the American Treasury. 
It gave Rutherford B. Hayes an opportunity to 
bribe men to count him into the presidential 
chair with a promise of an office ?s a reward for 
the dastardly deed. If it be urged that Grant 
and Hayes did not appoint men to office from 
unworthy motives, it is enough to say that the 
appointing system gave them the opportunity to 
do so. It is charged against them, and truth com- 
pels me to add, that many a man has been hung 
on testimony less positive than that which their 
accusers have produced to sustain the charge. 
The very fact that the appointing system gives 
the President power to appoint unworthy parti- 
sans to office, and to set bacl men to rule over 
the people without their consent, is enough to 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 37 

condemn it in a free government. Indeed, the 
government is not free where such a system 
exists. 

President Arthur would have us believe that he 
desires to so remodel the civil service system that 
the tenure of office will not be regulated by zeal in 
the service of party, nor fidelity to the interests of 
individuals. What duplicity ! Does not President 
Arthur know that when one is the recipient of a 
valuable office through the favor of an individual, 
he feels under an obligation to that individual, 
and that a sense of that obligation continues, 
whether in or out of office, and that such reci- 
pient will always feel more or less bound to 
reward the doner by fidelity to his individual 
interests, and, if need be, zeal in the service of 
his party ? Does not President Arthur know 
that any law that can be passed to prohibit 
removals in the civil service for reasons other 
than incapacity or bad conduct in office will 
have no effect whatever on removals ? He 1 ims 
to be doing all that such a law would require 
even now. And so do all who appoint or influ- 
ence appointments. I doubt whether Arthur, 
Grant or Hayes would admit that the^ ever 
removed an officer for political reasons. O, no! 
If the appointing power desire to remove an 
officer, some other excuse is found. And, 
methinks, if one holding an office of any consid- 



38 THE NEW ERA IN 

erable value, under Mr. Arthur's proposed system 
of civil service, should refuse to encourage, by 
means direct or indirect, much less assail the 
dominant party, whichever party that might be, 
the appointing power at Washington would make 
his seat very uncomfortable for him. If some 
excuse were not immediately invented to remove 
him, his position would be made so intolerable as 
to make him willing to resign. 

The pretense of President Arthur and his 
co-conspirators that they are striving to reform 
the civil service is simply shallow. Of what 
use is the new civil service law ? It does not 
apply to branches of the civil service where the 
number of officers does not exceed fifty, and if it 
did, it would avail nothing. The people are not 
consulted in the matter; it all lies with a board 
of examiners and appointing officers entirely 
beyond the reach of the people. Nonsensical 
indeed is the part of the law forbidding the 
assessing of those in the civil service for cam- 
paign purposes. Who does not know that 
such a law will be useless ? A man in the civil 
service having been appointed through the influ- 
ence of a friend can easily be made to feel by 
that friend or through that friend that money is 
needed for the purposes of the campaign (legiti- 
mate purposes, of course, for money is never 
given to be used wrongfully in political cam- 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 39 

paigns), and the friend can collect or have that 
money collected and used for electioneering 
purposes without making anybody liable under 
any law that can be enacted. However few the 
removals in the civil service, there must never- 
theless be some, and vacancies are always occur- 
ring, and while the appointing power remains 
with the President, the politician will have a 
great opportunity to encourage office-seekers to 
labor for him with the hope of an office for his 
reward. Ten thousand laws may be passed to 
prevent removals in the civil service, but they 
will do no good. The dominant party will have 
the same means of intrenching itself in power. 
As I have before said, some excuse other than 
political, will be found to get rid of an objec- 
tionable officer when the administration desires it. 
It will be a much stronger moral character than 
usually gets office by appointment that will dare 
to oppose the administration under which he holds 
his position. 

The following is from President Arthur's mes- 
sage for December, 1882: 

"As to the most probable terms and tenure of the 
official life of the subordinate employes of the govern- 
ment, it seems to be generally agreed that whatever 
their extent or character, the one should be definite 
and the other stable." 

Observe the language here used. // seems to 



4<D THE NEW ERA IN 

be generally agreed, etc. Among whom has it 
been generally agreed that whatever the char- 
acter and tenure of life in the subordinate offices 
of the government, one shall be def?iite and the 
other stable? Have the people agreed to give 
the civil officers of this government a life tenure? 
Have the people agreed to place a hundred thou- 
sand government officers beyond their reach for- 
ever ? Have the people agreed that for all time 
to come they and their posterity shall accept and 
pay for the services of a hundred thousand men 
whom they can neither elect to office nor remove 
therefrom ? No, sir; they have not agreed to 
any such thing. President Arthur has not con- 
sulted them in the matter; nor does he desire to. 
When he says it is generally agreed to, etc., he 
means that it is agreed to by that gang of mon- 
archical capitalists by whom he is surrounded. 

President Arthur has asked for the adoption 
of the English system of civil service, and Con- 
gress has taken a step in that direction by passing 
the new civil service bill. They would undoubt- 
edly have gone further, but they were not quite 
certain how much monarchy the people would 
take to begin with. It will not do to overdose 
them at the beginning, lest they get sick of it and 
refuse to take more. The following, which I 
copy from the Fruit Recorder, is appropriate 
here: 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 4 1 

" His Royal Presidency. — It has been well said that 
* a straw shows how the wind blows.' Two events which 
have letely happened in this country show the direction 
of the wind of flunkeyism here, if not something worse. 
For the first time in the history of the United States 
the President has adopted a distinctive badge. Follow- 
ing the example of the royal family of England and of 
other monarchial countries, he has unfurled to the 
breeze a presidential flag. That is evidently not suffi- 
cient, for we now learn that a colonel of the United 
States army has been detailed for duty with the house- 
hold of the Marquis of Lome and the Princess Louise 
on their journey to San Francisco, en route for British 
Columbia. Both these acts are contrary to our idea of 
republican simplicity. The sooner the colonel is sent 
to his regiment and the presidential flag makes room 
for the old stars and stripes the better we imagine it 
will be for the future of the country. — Work Stock Farm. 

All "of which we must emphatically endorse. — Ftuit 
Recorder. 

The editor of the Fruit Recorder agrees with 
the writer from whom he quotes and I agree 
with both. Straws show which way the wind 
blows. No thoughtful watcher of events; none 
who have observed the manouverings of the 
money power for the past twenty years, can fail 
to realize the painful truth, that when the excep- 
tion clause was put into the greenback, making 
one kind of money for the banks and another for 
the people, the wind set in the direction of a 
monied aristocracy and a privileged class in 
this country. Since that time every da}' has 



42 THE NEW ERA IN 

added to its strength and every year increased 
its fury until now it sweeps on with a power that 
seems almost irresistable. 

President Arthur asks for the adoption of a 
system of civil service that will place more 
than nine-tenths of the officers of this government 
where they can defy the power of the people to 
remove them, and the leading press and those in 
power in both old parties, in a greater or less 
degree, either openly or tacitly sanction it. 

Fellow-citizens will you submit to it? Have 
you forgotten Lincoln's warning in his first 
message to Congress. He told you to beware 
or the money power would close the door of 
advancement against you. Do you not see it 
closing? He raised his voice against returning 
despotism. Do you not see it returning? The 
noble defenders of this government, hating the 
despotism of the English system ot civil service, 
departed from it. Our modern American mon- 
archists would insult the memory of the fathers 
and outrage the spirit of modern civilization by 
returning to it. 

Let us thwart their purpose by placing the 
appointing power in the hands of the people. 
Surely they will use it wisely. If we consider 
them capable of choosing a President who 
appoints most of the officers in the civil service, 
we should be inconsistent indeed to question 



REPUELICAN GOVERNMENT. 43 

their capacity to choose the officers themselves. 
The people have the natural right, and should 
have the power to choose their servants from the 
smallest postmaster, who handles their mail, to the 
Supreme Judge, who determines their rights 
under the law. Deny the people this power and 
you make the civil officers of the government 
masters instead of servants. Indeed this is 
precisely what the appointing system does. How 
frequently some broken-down politician, whom 
the people have refused office time and again, is 
taken up and given a lucrative position by the 
appointing power. Now he is master for from 
four to six years. He can do as he pleases and 
defy the people. Not considering him worthy 
of trust, the people have repudiated him. But 
that makes no difference, the appointing power is 
above the people, and the}' must take him how- 
ever unwilling. If they refuse his services in one 
capacity they are forced to accept them in 
another and to pay for them also. This is 
despotism. The very thought that a system 
exists in this country, through which the people 
can be forced to accept and pay for the services 
of one whom they have condemned by their 
votes, is humiliating and saddening to one who 
loves freedom and believes in the right of the 
people to govern themselves. 

The appointing power in the hands of the 



44 THE NEW ERA IN 

people is not only necessary to relieve them from 
the deleterious effects of that monarchical feature 
of our government (the appointing system), but 
to stimulate them to guard well their own inter- 
est and that of their country. Under the 
appointing system the people have fallen into a 
dangerous apathy; their indifference is alarming. 

If we would have them acquire the knowledge 
of and exercise the watchfulness over public 
affairs which their own pecuniary interests as 
well as the safety of our institutions demand, 
they must be made to feel a deep interest in, and 
a close relationship to, every office in the govern- 
ment. This they can never be made to feel 
under the present regime. They have no direct 
control over the officers in the civil employ of 
the government, consequently do not concern 
themselves much about them. In some localities, 
when an obnoxious postmaster is thrust upon 
them, they murmur and sometimes petition for 
his removal, but it avails nothing. The despised 
official is held in position by the appointing 
power. Soon the people realize that he is their 
master and beyond their reach; then they settle 
back and quietly submit to be insulted daily by 
the presence in office of one in whom they have 
no confidence, and whom they would remove in 
an hour had they the power. 

When the day comes that every officer in the 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 45 

civil employ of the government is dependent upon 
the people for his appointment to office, and also 
for his continuance therein to the end of his 
term, the peoples' petitions will be heeded and 
their interests well guarded. To give the 
people power to elect all civil officers by direct 
vote is to destroy at once and forever the incen- 
tive to bulldozing in presidential campaigns by 
office-holders and office-seekers; for the all- 
sufficient reason that neither office nor the tenure 
of office will depend upon the pleasure of the 
President, but upon the pleasure of the people. 

Aspirants for the Senate will no longer bribe 
legislatures, for their election will not depend 
upon the vote of legislative bodies, but upon the 
vote of the people. Under this system officers 
and people will feel increased responsibility, 
and the result must be a greater zeal in the 
interest of good government and common 
humanity. 

Let the demand that the people elect all their 
civil officers by direct vote, and remove them 
when they prove unfaithful to their trust, consti- 
tute the second plank in the platform of the new 
party. 

THE THIRD PLANK IN THE NEW PLATFORM. 

I would suggest that the third plank in the 
new platform demand that the veto power be 



46 THE ERA IN NEW 

taken from the President. Let those who doubt 
the necessity for this change and mode of making 
laws read the following, which I copy from the 
Kansas City Journal, of January 16, 1882: 

" Plumb on Finance. — Special telegram to the Chi- 
cago Tribune gives a synopsis of Senator Plumb's speech. 
He surprised some of his Republican friends by his 
unreserve in talking out in meeting. He related that 
recently a national banker, living in an interior State, 
had said to him, in substance: After the funding bill 
of last session was passed, some of us bankers were 
misled into the belief that the bill compelled banks 
then holding 4 and 4 1-2 per cent, bonds, as a basis of 
circulation, to replace them with 2 per cents. Some of 
us got together and joined in a telegram to President 
Hayes urging him to veto the measure. We afterward 
found out we were wrong; and I have never regretted 
anything more than the sending of that telegram. The 
defeat of that bill was the worst thing that has ever 
happened to the banks ; it was the first step towards 
their downfall. He also said that Gen. Grant wrote a 
letter to President Hayes, urging him to veto the bill."* 

Think a moment ! A bill has passed Congress 
lowering the rate of interest on bonds, but being 
against the interest of the banks, a few bankers r 
with Gen. Grant, command President Hayes to- 
veto the bill, and he obeys them. 

Does not the above transaction present a dark 
picture of the depravity of Grant, Hayes and the 
banking fraternity? Who can read it without a 
chill of horror? Who can contemplate it without 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 47 

sad misgivings for the future safety of our coun 
try? Who can reflect upon it and not feel the 
pressing necessity for a movement that will 
destroy the power of the monied interests and its 
base allies to toy with the peoples' most sacred 
rights, and to outrage the spirit of constitutional 
and Republican liberty? This action of Grant, 
Hayes and the bankers show what kind of a gov- 
ernment we have been living under since death 
chilled the great heart of Lincoln. 

Rutherford B. Hayes and U. S. Grant once 
had reputations for honesty, and no doubt they 
were once patriots. But office power and money 
corrupted them till they became the pliant tools 
of a heartless and unpatriotic money power, and 
interposed their veto to thwart the clearly 
expressed will of the people, an act which the 
crowned head of Great Britain has not dared to 
do for more than a century. The temptation 
and fall of Hayes and Grant is a sad truth that 
ought to convince our people that the veto 
power is dangerous in the hands of the President. 

Important measures, especially those in the 
interest of the people, usually pass Congress by 
small majorities, hence the inconsistency, not to 
say despotism, of allowing one man to interfere and 
defeat a measure, however important, unless a 
two-third vote can be secured to pass it over his 
veto. If it be urged that the veto power, in the 



48 THE NEW ERA IN 

hands of the President is necessary to check 
hasty and unwise legislation, I then ask how it 
comes that one man is more competent to check 
hasty and unwise legislation, because he happens 
to be President, than a majority of the people's 
representatives, who happen not to be President, 
but each one of whom are likely to possess 
ability and patriotism equal to the President? 
If we could always have Washingtons and 
Lincolns for presidents, the veto power would be 
safe in their hands. But, unfortunately, we are 
sometimes obliged to manufacture presidents 
from very different material, as our political 
history clearly demonstrates. When a few 
bankers can thwart the will of this mighty nation 
with a single telegram to our President, it is 
high time that the avenue through which they 
can approach the citidel of our liberties and 
commit such dastardly outrages upon our rights 
was closed againt them. That avenue is the veto 
power in the hands of the President. That 
principle in our government which gives the 
President the power to overcome the clearly 
expressed will of the American people by a 
stroke of his pen, and the money power an 
opportunity to clog and even stop the wheels, or 
maybe ruin the government by influencing one 
man, is a monarchical relic of barbarism, unfit for 
this day and age, and should at once be elim- 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 49 

inated from our system of government. Many 
of our people appear to have a wrong idea of 
the theory of our governmental system. Robert 
Ingersoll, in speaking of our President, said: 

11 We want the man whom we elect for our head to 
have the army in one hand and the navy in the other, 
and to execute the supreme will of the supreme 
people." 

It seems not to have occurred to Mr. Ingersoll 
that that power might be used to thwart the will 
of the people and overthrow the government. All 
history speaks in thunder tones against clothing 
one man with any such authority. Then, too, the 
theory of our government is not to elect a man 
for our head, although practically it is otherwise. 
Theoretically we are the head, and the President 
our servant; but practically the President is in a 
great degree the head, and we the servants. We 
may struggle ever so hard, and win a majority 
in favor of a correct and vital principle, and get 
it through the National Legislature even, then the 
President, if he sees fit, can veto it, and nothing 
but a two-thirds vote of Congress can make it a 
law. Now, what we want is to make the people 
absolutely the head, and the President absolutely 
their servant. To this end we will strip him of 
the appointing and veto power. When this is 
consummated our Presidential elections will be 



SO THE NEW ERA IN 

conducted in a less rancorous and vindictive 
spirit, for the simple reason that whoever is 
elected cannot accommodate the office-seekers, 
nor grant favors to the money power. If we 
would put a stop to the bribery, fraud and tying 
that now characterizes our Presidential cam- 
paigns — if we would remove every obstacle to 
the full effect of the clearly expressed will of the 
American people — if we would place our liber- 
ties beyond the dangerous touch of one-man 
power — we must prohibit our President from 
appointing our officers and vetoing our laws. 

THE FOURTH PLANK IN THE NEW PLATFORM. 

It may be said that after we have the choos- 
ing of all our officers, and strip the President of 
the veto power, our liberties will still be insecure, 
from the fact that capitalists can influence Con- 
gress to make laws in their interest. All this is 
true — sadly true. We have always had some 
great and good men in Congress, but the majority 
are neither good nor great. Then, too, their 
number is small. The capitalists of the country 
outnumber them more than a thousand to one. 
It is a moral hero, indeed, who can resist the 
importunities, threatenings and money of a thou- 
sand men, who can come into his presence, 
besiege him day and night, and use the press to 
abuse and misrepresent him to his constituents 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 5 1 

in case he refuses to do their bidding. If he caters 
to capital, riches and eminence are his. If he 
stands by the people, he must remain in poverty, 
and his road to eminence is dark and dreary, if 
indeed he reaches it at all. Sometimes the capi- 
talists would undoubtedly find it profitable to 
make our entire Congress fich in order to secure 
the passage of a single bill in their interests. It is 
idle to talk of security for our institutions, or 
continued legislation in the interest of labor, 
while our law-makers are exposed to such tremen- 
dous temptations to legislate in the interest of 
capital and centralization. 

Where then is our security? It is in placing 
the veto power in the hands of the people. The 
capitalists may induce a majority of our Congress 
to vote against the people's interests. But they 
cannot induce a majority of the people to vote 
against their own interests. The capitalists may 
make a majority of Congress rich, but they 
cannot make a majority of the American people 
rich. Almighty God has graciously forbidden 
it by withholding from the country a sufficient 
amount of material wealth. At least ninety per 
cent, of our people must always remain in mod- 
erate circumstances at most. Their interests 
will always be the interests of the many. They 
will always love freedom and hate despotism. 
They will always be opposed to favoritism and 



52 THE NEW ERA IN 

a privileged class in the government. For their 
safety and the safety of our institutions, I would 
place the veto power in the hands of the people. 
To that end I would suggest that the fourth 
plank in the platform of the new party demand 
that no act of Congress shall take effect until 
first ratified by a majority of the legal votes 
of the United States. 

This plan was suggested more than one hun- 
dred years ago by one of the founders of this 
government, in the following words: 

"CONGRESS MUST NOT BE PERMITTED TO 
MAKE LAWS, ONLY TO PROPOSE THEM, AND 
THE PEOPLE RATIFY THEM." 

A grand idea worthy of the great mind and 
great heart of the author hero of the American, 
revolution. 

In my judgment this proposition contains 
more of the principles and elements of human 
progress, security and happiness than has 
been contained in a single proposition since 
the Declaration of American Independence^ 
partly inspired by the same mind, burst 
like a meteor upon the astonished gaze of a 
doubting world. In fact, it is another Declara- 
tion of American Independence, complete and 
absolute, and if ratified by the people, liberty 
will have achieved such a triumph as the worH 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 53 

has never yet witnessed. In the course of human 
events, it fell to the lot of the founders of this 
republic, to strike a mightier blow at despotism 
and centralized government than any equal 
number of men ever had the power or oppor- 
tunity to strike before. Thanks to them and 
the power that nerved their arm, they struck 
and struck manfully. They broke through 
the tyranical customs of their age. They disre- 
garded the threats of kings abroad and the 
admonitions ol hesitating friends at home. They 
saw the opportunity to do something grand for 
their country and humanity and they embraced 
it. 

They rose majestically on the wings of duty. 
Self faded away in the distance; they encoun- 
tered and rolled back the clouds of despotism 
that had so long darkened the tiresome path- 
way of human endeavor. Those clouds are 
again appearing; already their hideous heads 
frown above our political horizon. A duty as 
high and imperative, an opportunity as great 
and glorious as the fathers ever knew, now lies 
before the American patriot. It is in the power 
of this generation to again beat those clouds 
back to their dark, damp, native caverns, to show 
their ugly shapes no more in the serene blue of 
our own lovely Western sky. This can be 
accomplished by taking up freedom's banner 



54 THE ERA IN NEW 

where the fathers left it, and bear it on as they 
undoubtedly intended we should, and expected 
we would. That our forefathers did not believe 
that they had reached the acme of perfection in 
human government is evident from the fact that 
they made provisions for amending the constitu- 
tion to keep pace with the growing necessities 
of a great and progressive nation, and to meet 
emergencies which no human wisdom could 
foresee. There were giants in those days, and 
our forefathers were very wise, but their wisdom 
was not infinite; consequently they could not be 
expected to establish a perfect government. 

Then, too, they were prohibited by their 
immediate- surroundings from establishing a gov- 
ernment up to their highest ideal of perfection. 
They had many opposing forces, even in 
their own midst. Hamilton, and many strong 
men who had been active in the war against 
England, on account of her oppression of the 
colonies, still believed in a monarchy. On 
the other hand, was the mighty and patriotic 
Henry and other thorough Republicans who 
believed that each State should be sovereign in 
its own capacity, without any reference whatever 
to a central government. Such opposed the 
ratification of the Constitution for its centralizing 
tendencies. Then there was the abolitionist, and 
the friend of the American slave system, who had 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 55 

stood shoulder to shoulder in the struggle for 
independence. All these discordant elements 
had to be reconciled and brought together to 
sign and ratify the Constitution, which was to be 
the fundamental law of the land. 

These facts render it unquestionable that the 
Constitution of the United States, as it came 
from the hands of the fathers, was the result of 
many concessions on their part. 

Then, too, when we remember that all the 
framers of that immortal instrument were fresh 
from the arms of monarchy, and consequently 
unskilled in Republican government, we can only 
wonder that such circumstances could give birth 
to a government so perfect and so pregnant with 
Democratic principles. Yet a careful 'analysis 
of our system, as compared with the limited 
monarchy of Great Britain, reveals the fact that 
the fathers gave us a government hardly less 
despotic in many respects, than the one against 
which the)' had rebelled. 

The greatest safeguard against despotism given 
us by the fathers, and their greatest achievement 
in the interest of freedom, was in making provi- 
sion for the frequent return of all political power 
to the people. This was the crowning glory of 
their success. This is the distinguishing feature 
between our government and that of England. 
The power of the President is despotic, and 



56 THE NEW ERA IN 

so is that of the House and Senate. There are 
three great opportunities for opposing forces to 
defeat a measure in spite of the people. 

To illustrate: A bill originates in the lower 
house in the interests of the people. The mon- 
opolists are opposed to its passage. They 
can concentrate their forces on the members, 
and with money, threats and political influence 
defeat the measure. Or, if they fail to defeat it 
in the lower house, they can bring the same 
influences to bear on the Senate, which is much 
smaller in point of numbers, and consequently 
much easier controlled. And if they fail to 
control the Senate (which the results of the 
last twenty years' legislation will justify me in 
saying, is by no means likely), they can then 
move on the President to veto it, and here let 
history tell the sad story of their past success in 
that direction. 

It is true we can change our Representatives, 
Senators and Presidents, and it is a glorious 
privilege purchased with patriotic blood. It is 
the fathers most precious gift to us, their chil- 
dren. It is a priceless heritage. May God grant 
that it may ever be ours to enjoy. But fellow- 
citizens, precious and priceless as it is, it is not a 
perfect remedy, only a sweet relief. It is a strong 
defence against despotism; the strongest within 
reach of the fathers at the time they gave it. But 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 57 

it is not a complete safeguard. It is already 
partly overcome and in great danger of being 
entirely broken down by the money power. The 
privilege of changing the officers in the three 
great co-ordinate branches of the general govern- 
ment, gives the people power to unload, to a 
certain extent, the burdens that the votaries 
of despotism may heap upon them during the 
reign of a bad president and a corrupt Congress. 
But although the power to change once in a 
term of years, gives us an opportunity to rid our- 
selves of burdens, which they may, if they see 
fit, heap upon us. 

It does not prevent another set of officers from 
placing other burdens upon us just as heavy to 
be borne. If we change the officers, others take 
their places, with the same incentives to despotic 
action. The new officers are surrounded by the 
same temptations through which the old ones 
fell; Congress has the same inducement to cor- 
rupt the President; the President has the same 
inducement to corrupt Congress. While the 
moneyed interests and monopolies have the same 
inducements to corrupt the whole law-making 
power. No amount of watchfulness on the part 
of the people can prevent legislation in the 
interest of capital while Congress is permitted 
to make laws without the direct consent of the 
people and the President retains the veto power. 



58 THE NEW ERA IN 

We cannot wonder that our Legislators and 
Presidents fall. The temptations to wrong- 
doing are too many and too great. The thought 
is startling that they are allowed to lie in the 
path of disinterested legislators even, but when 
we remember that a very large majority of our 
legislators in Washington are themselves capi- 
talists, and therefore directly interested in 
monopolies the temptation becomes doubly peril- 
ous and the thought ten times more shocking. 
Can we wonder that under such circumstances 
the people are snubbed, hoodwinked, cheated 
and oppressed ? Can we wonder that the good 
Lincoln warned them in his first message to 
Congress to beware, or capital would heap dis- 
abilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty 
should be lost ? Such results flow from our 
system of law-making as naturally as rivers 
flow toward the seas. Indeed no other results 
can follow. They may be delayed for a time, as 
they were during the first fifty years of our 
existence as a nation, but their coming is certain. 
The framers of our constitution were men of 
great power and exalted goodness. They could 
and did (not without difficulty, however,) stay 
the tide of corruption with which unscrupulous 
politicians at times sought to deluge the country. 
But those old patriots have passed away from 
the scenes of their fierce conflicts and glorious 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 59 

triumphs. A new set of men have come upon 
the stage, and are playing a new play in the 
fitful drama of American politics. The differ- 
ence in the moral of the plays is distinctly seen 
in the part acted by the prominent leaders 
at the respective periods, and which may be 
summed up in these words of historic truth: 
General Washington refused a third term; 
General Grant sought it. These two signficant 
facts mark but too clearly the painful difference 
in the aspirations and purposes of the political 
movements of 1882 and those of 1782. Truly 
the century just passed has been fruitful of great 
events and rich with patriotic experience. 

In some directions we have achieved great 
things. In material progress we have made won- 
derful strides. That spark from liberty forge, 
fanned and blown by the winds of heaven across 
the sea, lighted on Plymouth Rock, and for a while 
shone dimly around that now renowned spot. 
Gradually it spread its light till 1775, when the 
Declaration of American Independence gave it a 
new inspiration, and sent its fructifying rays far 
and wide over the continent. Weary toil took 
courage and quickened her pace. The artizen 
performed his daily, task with brighter hopes. 
The plowman followed his plow with better 
cheer. The woodman seized his axe with 
renewed vigor. And New England forests, that 



60 THE ERA IN NEW 

had defied the storms and thunderbolts of cen- 
turies, now came crashing to the earth before 
the determined blows of resolute freemen. And 
New England hills, that hitherto had heard only 
the sullen roar of the passing gale, were soon 
charmed with the sweet melody of the church 
choir. Her valleys, that hitherto had sheltered 
only the beast and the savage, were soon trans- 
formed into busy marts of commerce and swarm- 
ing with civilized humanity, the genius of liberty 
leading the way. The enterprising sons of New 
England and the oppressed lovers of liberty from 
the old world, bent their steps toward the uncul- 
tivated fields of the West. And her broad 
prairies, silent but for the howl of the wolf; path- 
less but for the trail of the savage, were soon 
dotted with happy homes and blooming with 
golden harvests. Contemplate the Mississippi 
Valley as seen through the eyes of history, even 
fifty years ago. Then contemplate it as we 
see it now. 

Then that great Father of Rivers yielded his 
banks to the deer and buffalo, and his bosom to 
the canoe of the savage. Indeed, fifty years ago 
the Mississippi river seemed to have no mission 
but to leap St. Anthony, and roll silently on 
to loose itself in the stormy waters of the great 
Atlantic. Since then the enterprise generated 
by free institutions has driven the deer and the 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 6 1 

buffalo to regions more remote, and made the 
banks and valleys where they once disported 
thrill and glow with civilization. The savage 
has packed his canoe to distant waters, and left 
the grand, old river bearing the product of great 
States on its bosom to the sea. 

All this, and much more, may be said of our 
material progress in the last century. Nor has 
our growth been less rapid, in a mental and 
spiritual point of view. Great ideas are the 
power that moves the world in the right direc- 
tion; their birth in the mind are sure to be fol- 
lowed by clearer perceptions of duty and broader 
views of human and individual rights. 

The last century has been fruitful of noble and 
elevating ideas. The blue laws of Connecticut, 
and those of a similar character throughout the 
United States, have all been repealed or become 
a dead letter upon the statute books. The people 
have strode past them, and the mental condition 
that produced them has been almost entirely out- 
grown. A great idea smote the shackles of the 
slave and sent him bounding as free as the God 
that made him. And the colored American now 
rejoices in the proud ownership of his own bone 
and muscle. 

In all that is encouraging and elevating in 
spiritual and material growth, in the aggregate, 
our country may rejoice. The forces have been 



62 THE NEW ERA IN 

at work which produce those results. But other 
forces have been at work also. They are the 
principal subjects of this discussion, and if they 
are not checked they will counteract the good 
results of the others. 

Two classes of minds have always been promi- 
nent and powerful in American affairs. One 
class high, elevated, unselfish, caring more for 
humanity and less for money and self. The other,, 
selfish, grasping, avaricious, caring ever} 7 thing 
for self and money, and little or nothing for 
humanity. The former class were lately repre- 
sented by Lincoln, Giddings, Sumner, Greeley, 
etc. The latter class is represented by Vander- 
bilt, Gould, Blaine, Grant, Arthur & Co., in the 
Republican party; and Belmont, Buel, Bayard 
& Co., in the Democratic party. The former 
have passed away, and the latter are controlling 
both old parties in the interest of capital and cen- 
tralization. They have taken advantage of the 
confidence the people had in better men. They 
have controlled the press, and so shaped legisla- 
tion that the unparalleled reward American 
industry has yielded is flying to the pockets of 
the few, and every day the gap widens between 
capital and labor. Poverty increases in the midst 
of plenty, while millionaires and rich idlers are 
multiplying on every hand. The truth is, a 
majority of once happy homes are being in a 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 63 

great measure shorn of comfort, and the once free 
inmates are being rapidly chained down to 
drudgery. In fact, our country seems to have 
reached her turning point, and seems about to 
confirm the oft-repeated assertion that history 
repeats itself, and all republics relapse into despot- 
ism. Indeed, who that has rummaged among the 
dusty records of bygone centuries in search of the 
evidences of man's capacity for self-government 
that has not, at times, felt the force and gloom of 
the thought that liberty is only for a day — that, like 
the seasons, it has its Spring, Summer, Autumn, 
Winter and decay, ending precisely where it 
began? And if it start again, it is only to 
traverse the same circle back to the same fatal 
point? Why does the voice of all history seem 
to confirm this unhappy view of the case? Why 
has man in his struggles for liberty failed to 
make a more encouraging record? Why have 
republics sprang into existence and dazzled the 
world tor a day with their great achievements, 
and then relapse into despotism and centralized 
government? 

Is it because the majority of mankind do 
not desire to be free? Far from it. The 
desire to be free dwells in the breast of every 
civilized man. It springs spontaneously from 
his very nature and thrills his whole being. 

Does man lack the capacity for self-government? 



64 THE NEW ERA IN 

Not at all; only as the child lacks the capacity 
to walk until it first learns to stand on its feet. 
The fact that it staggers and falls and gets many 
a hurt before it can walk unaided, does not prove 
that it lacks the capacity to learn to walk. 
Experience and perseverence are all that is 
needed. It continues its timid efforts and finely 
its natural desire to walk alone overcomes its 
fear; it lets go its hold on its mother's hand and 
strides forth confident and happy as it might have 
done long before had it not so feared the first 
step. The same is true of man's experience in 
Republican government. The masses have never 
learned to stand fully and fairly upon their own 
feet and govern themselves entirely. On the 
contrary, they have leaned on the rich, who have 
very strong inducements to deceive them. They 
have delegated too much power to the few. 
The}' have left too much to the discretion of 
their representatives. The law making power 
is too far from them, and the inducements to 
corrupt it too many. Hence the tendency of 
Republican governments to relapse into dispotism. 
Hence the tendency of our own government to 
centralization. Hence it is that every year 
brings us more millionaries and more paupers. 
Hence it is that human society appears to move 
in a circle. 

Every age has its philanthropists, whose lives 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 05 

are spent in bettering the condition of their 
kind. They are sometimes able (though gen- 
erally at great cost to themselves and always in 
the face of much opposition and ridicule from 
the rich), to make the people realize their 
oppressed condition and strike for their rights. 

That inate love of liberty, implanted by God 
in the human bosom, makes men chafe when 
they realize that they are in a hampered condi- 
tion. Then oppression becomes intolerable, and 
they walk to their freedom though it be through 
rivers of blood. Then the people find themselves 
happy and free in a republic. Those noble men, 
who, mid storm and peril, led them through the 
Red Sea to the happy shore, now have the con- 
fidence of the people. They have proved them- 
selves worth) 7 of it. And while these men are 
at the head of affairs the republic is safe. They 
love it. They love the people and will not betray 
them. No love of gain, place or power can 
tempt these men, otherwise they would have 
remained on the side with rich despots and left 
the people to suffer oppression. But soon those 
old patriots begin to pass away, and another 
class, inspired by a greed for gain and thirst for 
power, creep in under the shadow of great names. 

The masses are unsuspecting, and therefore 
trust them. They are beyond the reach of the 
people's votes for from two to six years. The 



66 THE NEW ERA IN 

public funds are largely at their command, and 
tens of thousands of public offices under their 
control. They can use all this immense power 
to control the press and orators to help blind the 
public to what is being done until the people 
awake to find themselves with burdens and dis- 
abilities heaped upon them and their liberties 
lost, with no chance to regain them except 
through bloody war, the result of which is never 
certain. Thus it is that society moves in a 
circle, and Republics relapse into despotisms. 
Now, my countrymen, it is in our power to pre- 
sent the world with a Republic as enduring as 
the earth itself. Ours has the noble framework. 
It only needs bracing. It has the fundamental 
principles. We only need to destroy the one 
corrupting germ, viz.: the power of Congress 
to make laws, or, in other words, to take the 
veto power from the President and give it to the 
people. This will change at once and forever 
the tendency of our government to centraliza- 
tion. This will put an everlasting veto on class 
legislation. When the veto power is placed in 
the hands of the people, the capitalists and bad 
politicians will have no inducements to send a 
purchasable man to Congress, because he can 
make no law in their interest which the people 
cannot veto. Then, too, the new policy will 
have the effect to keep corrupt capitalists out of 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 67 

Congress. There are many good and noble 
wealthy men in this country, and one of that 
class may occasionally get into Congress and 
there labor for the best interests of his country. 
But, as rule, capitalists are in Congress, not to 
look after the interests of the country, not for 
the salary even (for it costs most of them more 
than their salary amounts to get there), but to 
look after their own pecuniary interests. They 
expect to reap their reward in the effect their 
legislation will have upon the value of their 
bonds, bank, railroad, mining and other stock in 
which their millions are interested. The new 
policy places the American people between them 
and the accomplishment of their base desires, and 
removes all inducements for them to go to Con- 
gress for purposes other than for their own honor 
and the good of their country. 

But some will say, that " if we make it 
unprofitable for the corrupt capitalist to go to 
Congress, or to purchase the influence of Con- 
gressmen, he will then turn his attention to brib- 
ing the people; he is bound to succeed; money 
will rule, 1 ' etc. 

To such I answer, that the proposition that the 
whole American people can be bribed is too 
absurd for serious discussion. Then, too, the 
same policy that renders the capitalist powerless 
to procure corrupt legislation through Congress 



68 THE NEW ERA IN 

furnishes the people with a much stronger incen- 
tives not to be bribed than they now have. 
Under the present regime there are very great 
inducements for an unprincipled man to sell his 
vote for a small consideration. He believes that 
the capitalist can purchase his representative; he 
also knows that he has no power to veto the law 
which that purchased representative may help 
to make. He therefore deems his vote of small 
value, inasmuch as it has so little power to affect 
results. Many a discouraged voter justifies the 
selling of his vote with just such arguments as 
these. But men that can be induced to sell their 
vote are very few in comparison .to those who 
cannot, and the new policy will make them much 
less plentiful. It will strip them of all those flimsy 
excuses, and leave their deformity all the more 
horrid to look upon. The veto power in the 
hands of the people will make every voter feel 
the mighty responsibility bearing upon him, and 
the priceless value of his vote. It will brings 
every man into such close relationship with the 
government that he can see the immediate effect 
of his every ballot; he then feels that he is in 
reality a part of the law-making power, and that 
every vote cast by him is sure to count one for or 
against him. When this condition of things is 
brought about votes will not be as easily pur* 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 69 

chased as they are now, and men will redouble 
their efforts to vote understandingly. 

It will be claimed by some that if we place 
the veto power in the hands of the people, and 
thus make it unprofitable for capitalists and big 
politicians to operate directly on Congress, and 
since buying the peoples' vote with money is to 
expensive, these same men will redouble their 
efforts to blind the people through the press and 
demagogues. And in consequence, small politi- 
cians will multiply in every neighborhood, and 
the veto power in the hands of the people, will 
still be wielded in the interest of capital and 
centralization. To this I answer that nothing can 
excite the press and politicians beyond the pres- 
ent degree of intensity. The capitalists and big 
politicians, as they are called, are early on the 
ground in political campaigns to purchase every 
purchasable newspaper (not already owned by 
them) and to reach every reachable politician to 
secure the nomination of their men to begin with 
(see Jay Gould's sworn statement, quoted in part 
first, that he paid large sums of money to influ- 
ence nominations and elections, etc.); then, after 
their man is elected, a certain degree of watch- 
fulness is necessary to keep the people ignorant 
of his real conduct in office. To that end the 
press is controlled by capital, and in such busi- 
ness small politicians find profitable employment. 



70 THE ERA IN NEW 

It is not possible to inaugurate a system of law- 
making under which the money power will work 
with more energy than it now does, nor can one 
come into existence under which small poli- 
ticians will multiply faster than they do under 
the present. 

Statements like the following are quite fre- 
quent now-a-days: 

" The people are either too ignorant or too careless 
to protect their rights in any event. The very men 
that have betrayed the people have been elected by 
them, and re-elected over and over again, and the 
veto power can bring no good results in the hands of a 
people so careless or ignorant of their rights." 

Such statements as the above usually come 
from men who have become discouraged with 
the people, seeing so many so party -blind as to 
allow themselves to be led by unscrupulous poli- 
ticians to vote against their own interest. 

The degree of success that will attend the 
efforts of corrupt politicians will depend in the 
future, as it has in the past, not upon the dishon- 
esty, but upon the ignorance, of the people. 
When I say ignorance, I have especial reference 
to government affairs and economic principles. 
Our business communities are composed of people 
who are intelligent and well informed on general 
topics. But, as a rule, they are in total dark- 
ness as regards the very matter that most affects 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 7 1 

their business interests. They read of specu- 
lators making corners on wheat and pork, and 
are watchful of market reports. But they have 
not the remotest idea why they are compelled to 
mark the price of their goods up and down on 
their shelves so often (see part first.) They do 
not dream that they are in a government entirely 
under the influence of a monetary system that 
is maintained for the express purpose of control- 
ling the whole business interests of the country, 
and through which the banking interests toss 
prices up and down as a boy tosses his marbles. 
The people have always had some true friends 
in the councils of the nation, and those friends 
have said enough and proven facts enough at 
every session of Congress for the last fifteen 
years to have enlightened the whole business 
population of America, so as to have enabled it 
to place the business interests of the country upon 
a less treacherous foundation than it now rests 
upon. But such facts and information have been 
suppressed by a press owned by a despotic money 
power. Who doubts that the business, and 
indeed the farming and laboring communities, 
will vote for their own interests, in spite of 
the money power, when they know what those 
interests are? The new policy will inform them. 
The one way to make the people proof against 
the wiles of the politicians and the power of a 



72 THE NEW ERA IN 

corrupt press is, to place the Congressional 
Record with the full text of every bill in every 
postoffice, and £ive them power to veto any law 
that does not please them. When this policy 
prevails, the people, knowing what measures 
they are going to vote for, will go to the polls 
feeling their responsibility, and the corrupt 
politician will be out of a job. 

Think what an effort it will cost to get a law 
upon the statute book against the interest of the 
people under the new system. In the first place, 
it will be a very desperate man who will dare to 
propose a bad law in Congress; for he knows 
that what is said in Congress for or against it, 
together with a full text of the bill, must go 
before the people, many of whom are his supe- 
riors in intellectual capacity and acuteness, the 
American House and Senate has no member 
who has not left his intellectual superior in his 
own district at home. Then, too, the average 
voter is not easily deceived when the law and 
facts are before him. 

To secure the ratification of a bad law, the 
friends of the law must deceive a majority of the 
American people into voting against their own 
interests with the law and facts before them, and 
in spite of the efforts of thousands of men who 
can see the trick just as quick as congressmen 
or the money power can see it, and who are ever 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 73 

on the alert to expose the faults and weaknesses 
of congressmen, whose seats they covet. The 
law that can reach the statute book through 
such a gauntlet as this will not do much harm 
before it can be repealed. 

[In the fourth plank in the new platform I 
omitted to provide that all acts of Congress not 
vetoed by the people shall take effect the same 
as they now do. And also that in case of war or 
other emergency, when laws need to be enacted 
faster than they can be conveniently ratified as 
hereinbefore provided, the people may allow 
Congress, for a limited time, to enact them as it 
does at present; provided, however, that the 
power to remove public officers by a two-thirds 
vote remain with the people intact.] 

The veto power in the hands of the people will 
transfer political discussion from the domain of 
party to the domain of law. In other words, the 
people will have less to do with parties, but more 
with the laws that govern them. This is a result 
much to be desired; indeed, its importance can 
hardly be estimated. It will do much to destroy 
party hate, which is the bane of American poli- 
tics. Shall we not adopt a policy which so clearly 
points to such glorious results ? Is it not prac- 
ticable ? I confess my surprise that some have 
intimated that the veto power in the hands of the 
people will not be practicable — that it will be 



74 THE NEW ERA IN 

cumbersome — that it will take too much of their 
time — that the people cannot go to the expense 
and trouble of voting on every law passed by 
Congress, etc. These are flimsy arguments, 
arising altogether from a misrapprehension of 
the situation. The veto power in the hands of the 
people cannot be cumbersome nor expensive to 
them; there need be but little trouble or expense 
added to our present system of voting. While 
the people will, in effect, consider and vote upon 
every law passed by Congress, yet their votes 
will actually appear only upon such laws as they 
object to. But very few words are necessary on 
a ballot to enable the voter to understand what 
law he is voting upon. Now, we will suppose it 
to be the duty of some officer in every voting 
precinct, at least thirty days before each general 
election, to procure from the records a text of 
every law passed by Congress since the last gen- 
eral election, and have them printed upon a suffi- 
cient number of ballots to accommodate the 
voters in his precinct, with Yes and No opposite 
to the title of every law. This will cost the 
people but a very trifling sum compared to the 
enormous amounts it will save them by curtailing 
wicked expenditures on the part of Congress. 

Now let us consider some of the advantages 
that must arise from the adoption of the new 
policy, and then we can better determine whether 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 75 

will the people consider it expensive or cum- 
bersome. Election day has come. The ballots 
are printed and in the hands of the people. 
The Congressional Record is in every postoffice. 
Every voter has either read or heard read, and 
discussed every law over and over again. He 
understands their meaning. He has made up 
his mind how he will vote. He runs his eye 
down the list, passing perhaps a dozen acts before 
he comes to one he wishes to veto. Finally his 
eye falls upon an infamous act like several passed 
by our last Congress. One of which granted a 
pension of five thousand dollars a year to Mrs. 
Garfield. Here I imagine he soloquises as did 
the Iowa soldier, a part of whose letter I here 
copy: 

" I am following the cultivator in small corn, and no 
very flattering prospects for a crop, I got very natur- 
ally into contrasting my condition with that of 
some other people, and wondered how my wife would 
fare if I should be taken away — then I could not but 
think of Mrs. Garfield. A New York paper, speaking 
of Mrs. Garfield, says: 'She has $300,000 in govern- 
ment bonds, the result of subscription. Her husband's 
life was insured for $50,000, which she promptly 
received. She also received the President's salary for 
the unoccupied first year, amounting to about #20,000 ; 
then add to that $30,000, the value of Garfield's estate ; 
that makes $400,000. Now the income from this sum 
will not be far from $16,000 a year. Most people would 
think that a comfortable income. Now, you men that 



J 6 THE NEW ERA IN 

labor, take heed. After having all the doctors' bilis 
paid this woman is given a pension of $5,000 a year, 
which is $13.79 cents per day for every day in the year. 
Now, you men that plow and grub for 75 cents to $1.00 
per day, study over this matter.' " 

The soldier here quoted has taken a correct 
view of the case as far as he has gone. But he 
has only considered his own present condition 
and that of his own wife, should he be taken 
away, and contrasted it with that of Mrs. Gar- 
field. The contrast is certainly very striking, 
and furnishes the soldier a just and powerful 
reason for his opposition to the bill granting Mrs. 
Garfield a pension. Now place the veto power 
in the hands of the people and the soldier will go 
further and see more. He will feel his responsi- 
bility in the matter and search after duty. His 
mind will go beyond the narrow limits of his 
own family or business interests, and roam far 
and wide over the land. On the wings of thought 
he will hover over our cities and see a hundred 
thousand children go supperless to bed. In yonder 
garret sits a widow, pale and wan and feeble; her 
health has broken down beneath the burden of a 
family of children made fatherless by war; her 
pension too scant to procure her comfortable 
quarters ; wholesome food or proper care. The 
angel of death lingers to bear her away from her 
sufferings. Now says the soldier: " The feathers 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 77 

on that widow's bonnet and considerable of her 
other wearing apparel, yea, her sugar and most 
of the other necessaries of life, are imported either 
entirely or in part, and are taxed to pay the 
expenses of the government, and if I vote to give 
Mrs. Garfield a pension of thirteen dollars per 
day, that suffering widow must pay a part of it. 
I cannot vote for it. My duty to my kind and 
country forbid it." 

From a million desolate homes, where poverty 
and hunger reigns, there comes a voice, like the 
voice of God, saying: If the government pensions 
anybody on the peoples' earnings, let it be the 
needy poor. The soldier cancels the Yes and lets 
the No stand a rebuke to the inconsiderate base- 
ness of an aristocratic Congress. Mrs. Garfield 
had more already than ever justly belonged to a 
single individual. To give her more is to rob 
the poor to give to the rich. A monarchical 
practice lately adopted by our government. The 
people will not regard as cumbersome or expen- 
sive anything that will enable them to put a stop 
to the infamous and liberty destroying practice. 

The voter continues to examine the title of 
enactments, as printed on his ballot. His eye 
soon rests upon the crowning infamy of the last 
Congress, viz.: a bill rechartering the national 
banks for twenty years. He soliloquizes as 
follows : 



78 THE NEW ERA IN 

" I have watched the proceedings of Congress,, 
as they appear in the Congressional Record, in 
the postoffice. I saw the proposition to recharter 
those banks. I asked myself the question: Will 
Congress dare to pass that bill? Sad feeling 
possessed my bosom and my heart ached when,, 
from my knowledge of the make-up and temper 
of that Congress, I answered: Yes, it dare to 
pass that or any other bill in the interest of capi- 
tal. I knew that a majority of our Congressmen 
were capitalists, and that the arguments against 
the bill would not reach the people through a 
hireling press; consequently, I believed that it 
would become a law, as far as Congress 
and the President had the power to make it 
so. But since the passage of that bill I have 
counted and blessed every day as bringing me 
one day nearer to election^ when I could set my 
unqualified veto upon the infamous act. Now r 
that happy day has come. The title of the bill 
is before me, with Yes and No attached. Now, 
national banking law, I know your history and 
your purposes. The bonds upon which you rest 
should have been paid in greenbacks, according 
to contract, and the interest thereon stopped in 
1869. That would have saved the people the 
interest on say four hundred million bonds upon 
which you have rested all these years. Reckon- 
ing the average rate at five per cent, from 1869 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 79 

to 1882, would amount to two hundred and sixty 
million (260,000,000) dollars. 

Again, had you been wiped out of existence 
in 1869, as you ought to have been, and as you 
would have been, had the people understood you, 
and the government issued and loaned the money 
to the people in your stead, the interest that 
the national bankers have pocketed would have 
been paid to the government, and used to lift the 
burden of taxation from the shoulders of the 
people. The amount of interest that the national 
banks have drawn from the people since 1869, 
placing their average amount of currency at 
three hundred million (300,000,000) dollars, and 
their net interest at 8 per cent, over and above 
their 1 per cent, government tax, amounts to 
four hundred and eighty million (480,000,000) 
dollars. This, added to the amount paid upon the 
bonds upon which the system rests, makes a total 
of seven hundred and forty million (740,000,000) 
dollars. All this you — you accursed national 
banking system — have taken from the people. 
It is an immense sum of money. If it were in 
one dollar bills, lying in a straight line, with the 
ends touching each other, it would reach about 
three times around the globe. You cruel banking 
system, you have not only taken this vast amount 
of money from the people, but you have packed 
conventions in the interest of capital, controlled 



8o THE ERA IN NEW 

the press, corrupted the avenues of intelligence, 
and made an honest and industrious people believe 
that your existence is necessary to a sound cur- 
rency. 

While at the same time you are expending 
and contracting the currency, sending prices up 
and down and pocketing the difference, charging 
exhorbitant rates of interest and robbing honest 
toil of its hard-earned money. Now Congress 
has voted to continue you in existence for another 
twenty years and I am asked to ratify the law. 

Here we will change from a soliloquy to a 
colloquy, in which Mr. National Banking System, 
whom we will designate by the letters N. B. S., 
solicits the vote of one whom we will call Jones: 

N. B. S. Mr. Jones I have come to ask you 
to sanction the act of Congress rechartering me 
for twenty years. 

Jones. I shall sanction no such thing sir. 

N. B. S. Why not? I am the best banking 
system in the world. 

Jones. You may be the best banking system 
in the world and yet be very bad. A man may 
pronounce his last glass of whisky the best he 
ever drank, but that will not prove that even the 
best is not destructive to the human system, nor 
that is the best beverage obtainable. The truth 
is, all banking systems now in existence, yourself 
included, are downright swindles, and exist only 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 8 1 

because the people do not understand them. 
You are all dangerous to liberty, and the cheapest 
cost the people altogether too much. But since 
you claim to be the best banking system in the 
world, let us inquire into the matter and see 
what kind of an institution the worlds best bank- 
ing system is. As a banking system what do 
you rest upon? 

N. B. S. On government bonds. 

Jones. Upon what do the bonds rest? 

N. B. S. Upon the credit of the government. 

Jones. What does the credit of the government 
rest upon? 

N. B. S. Upon the credit of the people. 

Jones. What does the credit of the people 
rest upon? 

N. B. S, Upon their property, of course. 

Jones. Then the truth is, the people furnish 
the basis for the national banking system, do 
they not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir; is that not a good basis? 

Jones. Yes, sir. But I want to find out why 
the people should furnish the basis, and then set 
you up in the banking business to pocket all the 
profits. But perhaps I shall understand better 
further on. Where do you get the moiie}- which 
you loan to the people? 

N. B. S. I get it it from the government. 



82 THE NEW ERA IN 

Jones. How do you get it from the govern- 
ment? 

N. B. S. I deposit bonds for security, and the 
government lets me have ninety per cent, of the 
value of my bonds in national bank currency, and 
this currency I loan to the people. 

Jones. How much does the government charge 
you for the use of this money ? 

N. B. S. I pay the government a tax of i per 
cent. 

Jones. It costs the government a considerable 
portion of this tax to manufacture this money for 
you, does it not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. Really, then, the government gives you 
the money gratis, or nearly so? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. This money you loan to the people at 
from 6 to 24 per cent, interest, do you not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. When you say the government, you 
mean the people, do you not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir; the government is the 
people, of course. 

Jones. Then, the truth is, the people furnish 
the basis for you to rest upon, set you to bank- 
ing, give you the money to do business with, and 
then borrow that same money back again, and 
pay you from 6 to 24 per cent, for the use of it. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 83 

Now, I want to know what the people get in 
return for this extraordinary use of their credit 
and the enormous interest they pay for the use of 
money. 

N. B. S. The people get a safe banking system ; 
there must be banks, and before the establishment 
of the national banking system the people's 
money was safe nowhere; money perfectly good 
to-day might be entirely worthless to-morrow. 
But the national bank currency is good in every 
part of the country; it can always be depended 
upon. 

'Jones. Is it a legal tender for debt between 
man and man? 

N. B. S. No; but then it is redeemable in 
greenbacks or specie, which amounts to the same 
thing. Should the national bank currency be 
refused in payment of debt, the payor can get it 
redeemed in that which is a legal tender for debt. 

Jones. You say the national bank currency is 
redeemable in greenbacks or specie. What per 
cent, of your circulation does the law compel 
yon to keep on hand for redemption purposes? 

N. B. S. Five per cent. 

Jones. That is rive cents to each dollar in cir- 
culation. You cannot redeem a dollar with rive 
cents, can you? 

N. B. S. No. But then the government is 
responsible for the redemption of the national 



84 THE NEW ERA IN 

bank currency. That makes it perfectly safe. 

Jones. You mean the people are responsible 
for the redemption of the national bank currency ? 

N. B. S. Yes sir. When I say government, I 
mean the people, as I told you before, the people 
are the government. 

Jones. Then the people not only give you the 
money to loan, but they become responsible for 
its redemption? This looks to me very extra- 
ordinary. I do not see that you are responsible 
for anything yourself? 

N. B. S. Yes I am. My bonds are deposited 
with the government for security for my cur- 
rency, and my currency is my credit which I loan 
to the people. The people are using my credit 
as money to do business with. 

Jones. But sir your bonds are the credit of the 
people who receive your currency because the 
credit of the government (the people) is behind 
it, and when the people borrow of you they 
borrow on their own credit, not on yours. They 
would not trust you at all if the government 
was not behind you. When a man bor- 
rows money of you he furnishes his own 
security. Thus it is that the national bank cur- 
rency is circulating entirely on the credit of the 
people and none other. In short, so far as I caa 
see, all there is that is substantial, safe or useful 
in the national banking system, is born of the 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 85 

people and rests upon their credit, and not upon 
the credit of those who are allowed to pocket the 
profits. What will be the average amount of 
currency you expect to loan to the people for 
the next twenty years, provided we conclude 
to recharter you? 

N. B. S. Basing my calculation on my increase 
for the last twenty years, I will loan about seven 
hundred millions. 

Jones. At what average rate of interest? 

N. B. S. About eight per cent. 

Jones. Then if we recharter you, you will 
draw from the people eight per cent, interest 
on seven hundred millon dollars of national bank 
currency for the next twenty years, will you not ? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. This will cost the people fifty-six millions 
per annum, or one billion two hundred millions 
for the term of twenty years. Then, too, we 
shall be obliged to allow about one billion of the 
national debt to remain unpaid in order for you 
to have bonds sufficient to rest upon. The 
interest on these bonds at 3 per cent, will cost the 
people six hundred million dollars for the twenty 
years, which, added to the interest on your cur- 
rency, makes a grand total of one billion eight 
hundred million dollars, a sum much larger than 
the national debt at the present time. These 
figures are appalling. But is this all the interest 



86 THE NEW ERA IN 

you expect to draw from the people, if you are 
rechartered for another twenty years? 

N. B. S. No, sir; we shall loan our deposits 
to the -people at the same rate of interest that we 
do our currency. 

Jones. What do you mean by deposits? 

N. B. S. Money deposited with us by indi- 
viduals for safe-keeping. 

Jones. Oh, yes; I noticed that, by the report 
of the Secretary for December, 1882, you had 
$1,122,472,682 of the people's money deposited 
with you for safe-keeping? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. Do you pay those depositors anything 
for the use of their money? 

N. B. S. Sometimes we have paid depositors 
a small per cent, for the use of their money, but 
generally we do not pay them anything. 

Jones. Do you pay anybody anything for the 
privilege of loaning those deposits to the people? 

N. B. S. No, sir; we once had to pay the 
government a tax of one-half of one per cent., but 
the last Congress repealed that law. 

Jones. Now, sir, the astonishing truth is before 
us. The American people are furnishing you, in 
deposits and national bank currency, nearly thir- 
teen hundred million dollars for almost nothing 
and borrowing it back again, and paying you an 
average interest of eight per cent. Great God! 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 87 

what a banking system. I wonder not at your 
desire to be rechartered; but I do wonder that 
you dare to hint such a thing to the American 
people. I should think the thought of your career 
during the last twenty years would overwhelm 
you with shame and fill your soul with a fear of 
the righteous indignation of the people whom 
you have robbed of more dollars than the 
war cost. But let us examine your system 
further: When you deposit a hundred thousand 
dollars in bonds with the government for the pur- 
pose of banking, those bonds draw interest all 
the while, do they not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. This interest the people pay indirectly 
through the government, do they not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. On those bonds you receive ninety 
thousand dollars in currency, and so much of 
that currency as you can loan, the people pay you 
interest on direct, do they not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. How much of that ninety thousand do 
you think you would loan on an average? 

N. B. S. About eighty thousand dollars. 

Jones. Now, sir, you have deposited one hun- 
dred thousand dollars in bonds and received 
ninety thousand back in currency, which leaves 
you with only ten thousand invested. Yet this 



88 THE NEW ERA IN 

people are paying you interest directly and indi- 
rectly on one hundred and eighty thousand dol- 
lars. If, by the best banking s}'stem in the world, 
you mean that you have more power to rob the 
people than any other system, then I agree with 
} T ou; for if the banking s} T stems of England or 
any other country are privileged like you, I have 
not discovered the fact. The truth is, our national 
banking system has more power to rob labor and 
fill its vaults with the earnings of the people than 
any banking system the world ever knew. Its 
rates of interest are more than double those ot 
England, while its control over the business inter- 
ests of the country is quite as absolute. The only 
advantage the national banking system has over 
the athers is the better security for its circulating 
notes, and that advantage is given it by the 
govenment (the people). But it is the most 
expensive banking system for the people the 
world ever saw. 

N. B. S. But, sir, you do not seem to take into 
account the vast amount of tax we pay to the 
general government and also to states. 

Jones. I am glad you called my attention to 
this subject, for your defenders have been among 
the people and stated this matter of taxation in 
such a way as to leave the impression that you 
are heavily taxed, which is not true, as will 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 



8 9 



appear from the Comptroller's report for 1878, 
page 15, it is as follows: 

"The total amount of United States taxes ; collected 
from the commencement of the system to the present 
time is as follows : 

On circulation $39.775>8 I 7-35 

On deposits 40,328,256.32 

On capital 5,929,480.73 



Total > $86,033,554.40 

" The annual amount of taxation, n2tional and state, 
has for the last four years been as follows: 



Year. 



1874 

1875 
1876 
1877 



Totat. 



National. 



$7,256,083 

7-3*7. 53 1 
7,076,087 
6,902,573 



28,552,274 



State. 



p 9,620,326 
10,058,122 

9>7oi,73 2 
8,829,304 



38,209,484 



Total. 



a6, 876, 409 

i7.375< 6 53 
16,777,819 

15.731.877 



66,761,758 



From the above table it will be seen that the 
total amount of tax, state and national, paid by 
the national banks for the above named four 
years amounted to $66,761,758. Now let us see 
how much those banks drew from the people in 
interest during those four years. On page 20 of 
the Comptroller's report for 1878, I rind that the 
national banks drew interest on their bonds 
deposited to secure ^circulation the sum of $17,- 
689,372. Taking this as the average for those 
four years their interest on bonds amounted to 



90 THE NEW ERA IN 

$70,757,488. According to Comptroller's report 
1878, page 35, the average amount of national 
bank circulation for those four years was $326,- 
133,631. The interest at eight per cent amounted 
to $104,362,761.92. I have no authentic state- 
ment of the amount of deposits held by the 
national banks during those four years. The 
Comptroller's report, before quoted, however, on 
page 4, gives the amount of deposits for 1878 as 
$677,159,298, which is undoubtedly above the 
average for the three previous years. I will, 
therefore, place the average at $600,000,000 
loanable deposits. This at eight per cent, for 
four years amounted to the sum of $192,000,000. 
The national banks then drew from the people 
for the four years named interest as follows: 

Interest on bonds $ 70,757,488.00 

" " currency 104,362,761.92 

" " deposits 192,000,000.00 

Total $367,120,249.92 

Deducting their tax of $66,761,758, leaves a 
balance of $300,358,491.92 as the sum which 
the national banks drew from the people in four 
years over and above what they returned in 
taxes. The same ratio, since the foundation of 
the system, would carry it above $1,500,000,000 
a sum larger than the war debt at the present 
time. It would give every tenth family in the 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 9 1 

United States the sum of $1,500. The interest 
on this sum of mone} T , at ten per cent., would 
give each state an annual income of nearly 
$4,000,000, which used to relieve poverty and 
distress, would carry joy to millions of homes, 
and destitution would be known no more in our 
midst. This is a vast sum of money to give you 
Mr. Banking System. 

N. B. S. So it is a vast sum of money, but you 
seem to forget that the people must have banks, 
and of course they must expect such institutions 
will cost them something. If you will notice the 
Comptroller's report, before quoted, on page 50, 
you will find that our average dividends for the 
years 1876, 1877 an ^ 1878 were a little less than 
9 per cent, on our capital and a little less than 7 
per cent, on our capital and surplus. That, you 
see, is not a very large profit on the capital 
invested. 

Jones. When you speak of capital invested, 
you include all bonds deposited to secure your 
circulation, do you not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Jones. While, technically speaking, your bonds 
are your capital, yet the government having 
given you 90 per cent, of their value in currency 
to loan to the people, only the remaining 10 per 
cent, can fairly be said to be invested. This, sir, 
is a phase of the subject which you and the Comp- 



92 THE NEW ERA IN 

trollers of the Currency, the Secretaries of the 
Treasury and your numerous allies are not anx- 
ious for the people to understand. When it is 
understood, the report of your per cent, of 
profit to capital will not be very pleasant reading 
for the American people. Let us look at the 
real facts in the case. According to the Comp- 
troller's report for 1878, page 4, your total 
capital at that date was, in round numbers, four 
hundred and seventy millions. According to 
same report, page 19, about three hundred and 
forty-nine millions of that capital consisted of 
bonds deposited to secure your circulation. Now, 
90 per cent, of those bonds, which, in round 
numbers, amounted to three hundred and fourteen 
millions, the government gave you back in cur- 
rency. This amount deducted from your reported 
capital of four hundred and seventy millions 
leaves you with an actual investment of one 
hundred and fifty-six millions. This, sir, gives 
you a profit on your investment of more than 25 
per cent., instead of 9, as reported by the Comp- 
troller of the Currency. 

N. B. S. Do you dispute the figures made by 
the Comptroller of the Currency? 

Jones. Not at all sir. He figures correctly, 
but he states his propositions so adroitly that the 
common reader is misled by them. For instance, 
when he makes no mention of the ninety per 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 93 

cent, of currency which the government gives 
the national banker when he deposits his bonds 
to secure his circulation, and reports the total 
amount of bonds deposited as capital invested; 
and figures his profits upon that basis, he mis- 
leads the people, inasmuch as it makes the invest- 
ment of the banker appear several times 
larger than it really is, and makes their profits 
appear very much smaller than they really 
are. One of the saddest thoughts growing out 
of this discussion, and one that will astonish the 
people most when they come to learn the real 
condition of our country, is that the money power 
has been able to induce so many high officials to 
prostitute their exalted position to the base pur- 
pose of deceiving the people in regard to our 
monetary system. The truth is, the Comptroller's 
report, though ostensibly made for the benefit 
of the public, is really to tickle their ears. Note 
the following from page 25 of his report for 
1878: 

" The law provides that banks in New York City shall 
hold a cash reserve of 25 per cent, upon their deposits' 
and that banks in other principal cities shall hold an 
equal ratio of reserve, one-half of which must be in 
bank while the remainder may be on deposit in New 
York. All other banks must hold a reserve of 15 per 
centum upon deposits, two-fifths of which must be on 
hand in lawful money, and the remainder may be on 
deposit with banks in reserve cities." 



94 THE NEW ERA IN 

In same report the Comptroller makes tabular 
statement, showing that in October, 1878; the 
national banks in the principal cities held a reserve 
fund against their deposits nine-tenths of one per 
cent larger than the law required. Now, sir r 
technically that report made by the Comptroller 
is true and according to law, but the law and 
statement are both misleading. The truth is, the 
national banks are compelled to keep a sum equal 
to five per cent, of their circulation on deposit at 
Washington, for the government to use in the 
redemption of national bank currency. This 
money amounts to about twenty million dollars, 
and cannot be used by the banks for any purpose 
whatever. Still the law allows them to count it 
as a part of their reserve fund for the redemption 
of deposits. In this way the Comptroller makes 
it appear that the banks, at a stated time, had 
more reserves by nine-tenths of one per cent, than 
the law required. But, to make this showing for 
the banks, he included about twenty million dol- 
lars which he knew was deposited at Washing- 
ton, under the control of the government, and 
could not be used by banks for any purpose what- 
ever. The government does not promise to 
redeem the deposits of national banks — only their 
currency. It is misleading for Comptroller Knox 
to say that the national banks are required to 
keep a reserve of twenty-five and fifteen per cent. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 95 

to redeem deposits, when the truth is, more than 
twenty millions of that twenty-five and fifteen 
per cent, reserve is ^deposited in Washington 
to redeem circulation, and cannot be used to 
redeem deposits at all. And the law that 
permits national banks to count among its 
reserves, for the redemption of deposits, a very 
large sum of money that is forbidden by law to 
be touched by the banks for any such purpose, 
is a disgrace to an American statute book. Its 
proper name is legal lie. It is a cheat, and was 
intended to be such. It is the tainted child of a 
corrupt Congress. It is the creation of a set of 
bad men, who are laboring to keep the people 
ignorant of the condition of the national banks, 
and their true relations to the business interests 
of the country. And, sir, if I had no other reason 
for voting againt the rechartering of the national 
banks, I would do it on the ground that they are 
destroying the integrity of our public servants. 

N. B. S. I do not deny that I am a. corpora- 
tion working, not for the interests of the people, 
but for my own interests. I of course labor to 
get national bankers into Congress, and other 
men who will work for my interests, and who 
will frame the laws so as to aid me in my busi- 
ness as a corporation. I do all I can to get men 
appointed as Secretaries of the Treasury and 
Comptrollers of the Currency who will shape their 



96 THE NEW ERA IN 

reports so as to favor me as much as possible. I 
also influence the press and speakers, and in 
loaning money and in granting favors generally, 
I favor those who favor me. In other words, I 
conduct my affairs upon business, and not upon 
philanthropic or patriotic principles. You have 
a right to conduct yours in the same manner, 
and you ought to do so; if you do not care for 
yourself, no one will care for you. 

Jones. That is just the thing I propose to do 
in the present case, but heretofore I have allowed 
myself to be hoodwinked by you and the press 
and demagogues under your influence, into work- 
ing and voting exclusively in your interest, at the 
expense of my own and that of my country. But 
now my eyes are open, and I do not propose to 
continue to furnish you with money for almost 
nothing, and borrow it back and pay you from 6 
to 24 per cent, for the use of it. 

N. B. S. Where can you get a better or cheaper 
money than I can furnish you? 

Jones. Of the government, sir. The greenback 
is a safer and cheaper money for the people than 
yours. 

N. B. S. Why are greenbacks better and 
cheaper for the people than our currency, when 
ours is as good as gold anywhere in the country ? 

Jones. Greenbacks are better than } T our cur- 
rency because they are a legal tender for debt 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 97 

between man and man, while your currency is 
not. Your currency is a legal tender to the 
national banks, to the government, except for 
duties on imports, and from the goverment to its 
creditors, except for interest on the public debt, 
but it is not a legal tender between man and 
man in the common business of life; hence it is not 
a safe money. If my farm were mortgaged, and 
the last day for redemption had come, and if the 
money which I offered in payment should happen 
to be national bank currency, the mortgagee could 
refuse it and take my farm from me, unless I 
could get the greenbacks or specie in season to 
prevent it, and I might be too late to do that. 
There have been such occurrences in Iowa and 
other States. 

N. B. S I admit such a thing has taken place, 
and may again. You must be on your guard. 

Jones. But, sir, when I have the greenback 
currency, I do not need to be on my guard; it 
is a legal tender for debt between man and man, 
and, consequently, is a safe currency, while }'our 
national bank currency is not. I trust you now 
see why the greenback is a safer and better 
money than that of the national banks. Now, a 
word as to the greenback being the cheapest for 
the peeple. I copy the following from page 21 
of Comptroller's report for 187S: 



98 THE NEW ERA IN 

" In localities where the annual rate of interest is 
seven per cent, the value of circulation is about two 
and sixty-two hundredths per cent., and where the rate 
is ten per cent, its value is about two and five-hun- 
dredths per cent." 

Here it is admitted by the Comptroller that 
the value of circulation to the national banks is 
about 2^£ per cent, on their capital employed. 
That is to say, the profit accruing to the national 
banks from being allowed to deposit interest- 
bearing bonds, and receive 90 per cent, back in 
currency is about 2^ per cent, greater than it 
would be if they were to loan the money 
invested in those bonds directly to the people. 
This is their extra profit, after paying their 
taxes on their circulation. In other words, the 
national banks make nearly z]/ 2 per cent, more 
on their capital emplo}*ed by being allowed .0 
issue their own currency than they would if they 
were banking on greenbacks alone. Am I cor- 
rect, sir? 

N. B. S. According to the Comptroller's 
report you are correct. 

Jones. Now, sir, I will place the average 
amount of capital which you will employ for the 
twenty years for which you ask to be rechartered 
at seven hundred million dollars. On this 
amount you will make about 2*/ 2 per cent, more 
than you would if your bonds were exchanged 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 99 

for greenbacks and you compelled to bank on 
thern instead of your own currency. So, of 
course, that 2^ per cent, on the seven hundred 
millions represents the difference in the cost to 
people of the greenbacks and national bank cur- 
rency, does it not? 

N. B. S. Of course all we make extra the 
people pay extra. 

Jones. Very well, sir. To be generous with 
you I will reckon the extra profit on the seven 
hundred millions at 2 instead of 2*^ per cent, as 
reported by the Comptroller. The difference to 
the people will then be fourteen millions per 
annum, or two hundred and eighty millions for 
the term of twenty }^ears. Now, sir, this is an 
immense difference. I can see no reason why the 
people should set you up in the banking busi- 
ness, and pay you two hundred and eighty 
million dollars to furnish them currency for the 
next twenty years, when the government can 
furnish them with a currency so much cheaper, 
and one, too, that is in every sense of the word 
better and safer than yours. Wiry, think what 
the people could do with that two hundred and 
eighty million dollars, should they see fit to use 
it for their own benefit instead of yours. Allow- 
ing forty States in the Union, with an average 
of one thousand townships to a State, that two 
hundred and eighty million dollars would place a 



IOO THE NEW ERA IN 

circulating library in every township in the 
United States at a cost of seven thousand 
dollars each. I must say, sir, that if I had no 
other reason for voting against the recharter of 
the national banking system, I would do it on. 
the ground that currency issued by banks under 
that system is so much more costly for the 
people than currency issued directly by the gov- 
ernment. I cannot consent to impose a tax uponj 
the American people that will amount to a sum 
equal to seven thousand dollars to every town- 
ship in the United States for no other reason than 
that you may continue your despotic reign for 
another twenty years. I shall, therefore, record 
my vote against the rechartering of the national 
banks. 

N. B. S. If the people take your advice and 
refuse to recharter the national banking system,. 
they will miss the tax these banks are now pay- 
ing into the treasurys of the states and nation. 

Jones. If we drive you out of the banking 
business you will invest your money in other 
taxable property, and we shall receive taxes from, 
you the same as now, only more of it. 

N. B. S. Well, sir, since you have decided not 
to vote for the rechartering of the national banks,. 
I will talk to my old friend, Farmer Towsides- 
I have accommodated him with money from my 
bank several times, and he has had money 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. IOI 

deposited with me several times. I think he 
appreciates me as a banking system and will 
probably vote for my continuance. 

Here Farmer Towsides takes Jones' place in 
the discussion with national banking system. 

N. B. S. Mr. Towsides, I suppose you are 
aware that Congress has passed a law recharter- 
ing the national banks for twenty years? 

Towsides. Yes, sir. Since the veto power has 
been placed in the hands of the people and the 
Congressional Record in every postoffice, we 
farmers are keeping posted on the doings of Con- 
gress, we feel that our vote acts directly on our 
own interest now, and that we cannot afford to 
be ignorant. But under the old regime we did 
not think it worth while to know much about 
politics. We did not feel that our vote affected 
the laws very much, so we thought we might 
about as well elect one man to office as another, 
for by the time he got duly installed therein, the 
capitalists would either buy or frighten him into 
their service. Then, too, the newspapers and the 
speakers could put just such a face on things as 
they saw fit, and we could not tell whether their 
statements were true or false, and the Congress- 
man could make such laws as they saw tit and 
we could not help ourselves. The influence of 
the money power could contract the currency 
and send our prices down. Railroad corporations 



102 THE NEW ERA IN 

could seize our lands and we would know nothing 
about it until it was too late. Our law-making 
power wastoofar from us, and our opportunities 
to get correct information were insufficient. But 
now the Congressional Record is where we can 
see it every day, and the consequence is, I under- 
stand the national banking law lately passed by 
Congress. What did you wish to say about it, sir? 

N. B. S. I have come to ask you if you will 
endorse the action of Congress, so far as relates 
to the rechartering of the national banks? 

Towsides. No, sir; I will not. And before I say 
more in justification of my blunt answer to your 
question, I wish to remark that never have I felt 
so deeply as I do now the importance of that 
particular plank in the platform of the new party, 
which declares that any officer in the government 
may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the 
people that elected him. The triumph of this 
principle in iVmerican politics will make the offi- 
cers of the government really the servants of the 
people, to be discharged when they fail to do 
their master's will. Under such a policy con- 
gressmen will not only fear to pass unjust laws, 
but they will fear to neglect to pass such laws as 
the people demand, lest such negligence cost 
them their seat. And, sir, if ever a set of men 
deserved to be discharged, and have their pay 
stopped, and they branded as unworthy servants, 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. I03 

it is those tools of the money power in Congress 
who voted for the rechartering of the national 
banks. 

N. B. S. You seem to be as much opposed to 
the national banking system as Mr. Jones is. 

Towsides. Yes, sir; lam. I have been listening 
to the conversation between yourself and Jones, 
and while you were talking I was meditating 
upon the difference in your situation and mine 
in regard to our business transactions, and, 
sir, I confess that I feel chagrined at the course 
I have pursued for the last twenty years. 

N. B. S. I do not understand you, sir. You 
have borrowed money at my bank; we charged 
you ten per cent, interest, the same as we charged 
others. You made money out of the operation. 
You got your land paid for, and have since 
deposited money with me. Was there anything 
wrong in that transaction? Pray tell me what 
you have done at which you feel chagrined? 

Towsides. I will soon tell you, sir. You say 
you loaned me money. Where did you get the 
money which you loaned to me? 

N. B. S. I got it of the government. 

Towsides. Very well, sir; the government is 
the people, and I am the people, collectively 
speaking. So really you get the money from 
me. Do you remember what you paid me for 
the use of that money? 



104 THE NEW ERA IN 

N. B. S. Yes, sir; I paid you (the government) 
a tax of one per cent. 

Towsides. Do you remember what rate of 
interest you charged me when I borrowed that 
money back from you? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir; I charged you ten per 
cent., the same as I charged others. 

Towsides. Well, now sir, I am chagrined that 
I, in effect, loaned you money at one per cent, 
and borrowed it back again and paid you ten per 
cent for the use of it. Now, another question: 
why did you loan me that money? 

N. B. S. The one great reason was, because I 
knew you owned property enough to render the 
debt secure. 

Towsides. In other words, my property was 
your security, was it not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Towsides. Did you pay me interest on that 
security while I owed you the debt? 

N. B. S. Of course not; I could not live at 
that; besides, it would look rather odd for the 
borrower to give security for money, and then 
receive intererst from the lender on that security. 
It would not be business-like; do you think it 
would yourself, Mr. Towsides? 

Towsides. No, sir, I do not; and right here I 
have a question for you: When you borrowed 
that money of the government, or, rather, of me 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. I05 

(the people), to loan to me, what security did 
you give? 

N. B. S. I gave United States bonds for 
security. 

Towsides. Did you draw interest from me 
(the people) on those bonds while they remained 
with the government as security for that money ? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Towsides. Now sir, do you think I (the people) 
can live at that? Do you think that looks business 
like on my part? Do you wonder that I am 
chagrined at such a business transaction as that ? 
Can I live by letting you have money for a little 
more than it costs to print it, take your bonds 
for security and continue to pay you interest on 
that security, and then pay you ten per cent, for 
the use of money besides, making in all nearly 
fifteen per cent ? Why sir, a part of the money 
which I borrowed of you went to pay taxes, which 
you should and would have paid if your bonds had 
been taxable the same as my farm. Another 
part went to pay store bills, which I was obliged 
to contract in consequence of having lost my crop 
by grasshoppers the year before. I was strug- 
gling to get out of debt, and if anybody needed 
money at a low rate of interest, it was me, not 
you. You was able to invest a hundred thousand 
dollars in government bonds; sit in the shade 
and draw your interest, I was toiling in the burn- 



Io6 THE ERA IN NEW 

ing sun on a farm, worth perhaps a thousand dol- 
lars; receiving for my labor barely enough to 
keep soul and body together, and millions of my 
brother farmers and laborers were in the same 
condition. Yet you was getting money of us at 
one per cent, and we were borrowing it back at 
ten. Your bonds would have no value were it 
not for my property. They rest upon my credit 
(the credit of the people); so if your bonds are 
good security to the government for money my 
land must be doubly so. My God, sir, I feel 
mortified to think I have furnished the money 
and guaranteed its redemption, and then allowed 
you to step between me and the government and 
pocket ten per cent, interest till I am nearly 
ruined. However, you stated, if I remember 
right, that I had had money deposited with you? 

N. B. S. I have been informed that you had 
surplus means, and had deposited some money in 
national banks. 

Towsides. You have been correctly informed, 
sir, I once had a little surplus means. They 
were the result of earnest and persistent toil on 
the part of myself and wife. I had labored with 
determined energy to get out of debt and to get 
a little ahead for a rainy day. My noble wife, 
though often faint and weary and worn, seconded 
my every effort. If frost blighted our crops 
or tempests swept them away, trusting in God> 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. I07 

we planted again, determined that the winter 
of old age should not find us homeless nor depend- 
ent upon others for support. Our little farm we 
intended to give to our faithful son as a scanty 
reward for his kindness to us. The little money we 
had saved was intended to clothe us and provide 
medical attendance should we need it when the 
infirmities of age should be upon us, and also to 
defray the expenses of the last necessary attendance 
upon our worn-out earthly remanis, when the spirit 
should take its flight to realms where high rates 
of interest never rob nor cruel greed make hard 
the pathway of the just. With such feelings 
and purposes we cast about for a safe place to 
deposit our little surplus money, that represented 
so much sweat, toil and anxiety. As an illustra- 
tion of how I was misled and robbed by the 
national banking system, I will here produce a 
synopsis of a decision of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, as given on page 69 of Comp- 
troller's report for 1878. It is as follows: 

"The cashier of a national bank, who had executed 
no bond, embezzled its funds, discovery whereof might 
have been effected by use of slight diligence on the 
part of the directory. They, however, published, 
according to law, a statement of the condition of the 
bank, which showed that its affairs were being pru- 
dently and honestly administered, and from which the 
public had a right to believe that he was trustworthy^ 
Afterward, persons who had seen this report became 



I08 THE NEW ERA IN 

sureties on the official bond of the cashier, and for his 
subsequent embezzlements were sought to be held 
liable thereon: Held, that such sureties, being misled 
by the statement, were released. They had a right to 
believe that the directors, before publishing it, investi- 
gated the condition of the bank. — Graves vs. Leba?ion 
National Bank, 10 Bush., Ky.,p. 23." 

I was in the same situation as those who 
became surety on the bond of the cashier in the 
case above quoted. I believed the bank secure. 
In fact, it would be almost a miracle for a national 
bank to be reported unsafe before it is too late 
for the depositors to save themselves. Banks do 
not do business in that way, as will appear from 
the following, which I copy from pages 51-52 of 
the Comptroller's report for 1878: 

INSOLVENT BANKS. 

"Since November 1, 1877, receivers have been 
appointed for banks in operation at that date, as 
follows : 

Capital. 

Third National Bank, of Chicago, 111 $750,000 

Central National Bank, of Chicago, 111 200,000 

First National Bank, of Kansas City, Mo 500,000 

Commercial National Bank, of Kansas City, 

Mo 100,000 

First National Bank, of Tarrytown, N. Y 100,000 

Washington County National Bank, of Green- 
wich, N. Y 200,000 

First National Bank, of Dallas, Tex 50,000 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. I09 

People's National Bank, of Helena, Mont... 100,000 

First National Bank, of Bozeman, Mont.... 50,000 

Farmers' National Bank, of Platte City, Mo. 50,000 



$2,100,000 



Here is one year's failures of national banks, 
and what a picture it is. Some, you will 
observe, were very heavy, having a capital of more 
than half a million. According to the Comp- 
troller's report, the aggregate loss to creditors 
from these failures was nearly one million dollars. 
The public knew nothing of the unsound condi- 
tion of these banks until it was too late. From 
the sworn statement of their directors, the people 
had a right to believe them sound. They did 
believe them sound, and deposited their money 
with them. But, sir, they awoke from their 
dream of security to find their precious dollars 
swallowed up by a damnable banking association 
to the tune of nearly an average of one hundred 
thousand dollars to each bank. And as to myself, 
I never slept more sweetly than I did on the night 
preceding the day that brought the intelligence 
that the bank which contained our little surplus 
money had failed. That day I never can forget. 
I remember the look of despair that overspread 
the features of my poor wife when I broke the 
sad intelligence to her. I remember how her 
frame shook as she exclaimed, through pale lips, 



IIO THE NEW ERA IN 

My God! is our money lost! and sank into her 
chair and wept the grief she could not utter. I 
remember her recital of the hardships she had 
endured and the sacrifices she had made to help 
me save that money, in the hope that thereby we 
might keep our little farm unincumbered during 
the evening of life, and place ourselves beyond 
the danger of want, should we linger long after 
our limbs refused to obey our will. I remember 
her look, more discouraged than imagination 
ever pictured, when she realized that should 
disease seize either of our aged bodies and hold 
it helpless for any considerable length of time. 
Our little farm would be obliged to be mort- 
gaged to raise money to make us comfortable, 
and finally, that, after all our struggles and hopes, 
the winter's storm might yet beat upon our 
houseless heads ere mother earth receives us 
as:ain to her bosom. I also remember how I felt 
when I came to realize that most of the surplus 
earnings of sixty years of my life had been swept 
v- away by what is termed the best banking system 
in the world. Great God! said I, if this be the 
best banking system in the world, deliver me from 
the worst. And, sir, from that very hour every 
fibre of my being has revolted at the idea of a 
banking association being chartered to compel 
this people to pay high rates of interest on money 
furnished by themselves, and which association 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT, III 

may squander the money which the aged and 
infirm, the widow and the orphan, may have 
deposited with them for safe keeping. I am 
chagrined when I remember that I cannot bor- 
row money without giving nearly double secu- 
rity, yet so stupid as to deposit my money with 
you without security that amounted to anything. 
I should have remembered that, according to 
the Comptroller's report, your whole assets, even 
when you fulfil the requirements of the law, are 
equal to only about one-half of your debts. But, 
like other people who have been blinded and 
wrongly educated by the money power, I did not 
look at the matter in the right light. I deposited 
my money in a national bank and lost it, and 
were it not for my poor wife, whose remaining 
days have been saddened and shortened by it, I 
should deem it a just, though severe, punishment 
for my stupidity in voting to set men up in the 
banking business, furnish them the money to 
bank on, and then permit them to so frame the 
laws that they can perform the villainous trick 
of robbing me of the surplus earnings of a life- 
time. 

N. B. S. But you seem to forget that very 
much more money is lost through other banking 
systems than through mine. 

Towsides. I am talking about yours now. If 
others are worse than yours that docs not make 



112 THE NEW ERA IN 

yours any better. All banks are robbers and 
despots. They rest upon no just principle. You 
as a banking system sustain a relation to your 
debts the very opposite to that I sustain to mine. 

N. B. S. Why so? 

Towsides. You draw interest on your debts, 
while I pay interest on mine. 

N. B. S. How do you make it appear that I 
draw interest on my debts? 

Towsides. I not only make it appear that you 
draw interest on your debts, but the following, 
from the report of the Secretary of the Treasury 
for December, 1882, proves that you do. Here 
are his words and figures: 

"The number of national banks organized during 
the year is 171, which is the greatest number organized 
during any year since 1872. The number of banks in 
operation is 2,269; more than at any previous date. 
They are located in every state and organized territory 
of the Union. The returns made by them show that on 
October 3 of the present year, they had as aggregate 
capital $483,104,213 ; as surplus, $131,977,450 ; as indi- 
vidual deposits, $1,122,472,682; had made loans in 
amount $1,238,286,524, and held in specie $102,857,778." 

Here it will be seen that you have loaned to 
the people in round numbers $1,238,000,000, 
while your capital in round numbers is only 
$483,000,000. Now if we add your surplus of 
$ 1 3 1 ,000,000, and your specie on hand,$ 1 02 ,ooo,- 
000, to your capital, your entire assets is $716,- 
000,000 or $522,000,000 less than your debts. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. II3 

N. B. S. But, sir, in addition to our surplus 
reserves and capital, the shareholders are indi- 
vidually responsible for the bank debts. That is 
for the redemption of their money loaned to the 
people, both their currency and deposits. 

Towsides. Such statements are made by you 
and }^our friends for the purpose of giving the 
people confidence in your solidity. The Comp- 
troller, writing as though he were your attorney 
pettifogging your case through a justice's court, 
on page 56 of his report, before quoted, speaks as 
follows : 

" The shareholders of every national bank are each 
made individually responsible, equally and ratably, 
and not one for another, for all contracts, debts and 
engagements of such association, to the extent of their 
stock therein, at its par value, in addition to the amount 
invested in such shares : thus giving a double security 
to the general creditors of these associations.'' 

From the above statement of the Comptroller 
it would appear that the creditors of the national 
* banks were really doubly secured by the share- 
holders being made personally responsible. This 
is not true, as the following, on page 53 of same 
report will prove: 

"The Comptroller proceeded against the shareholders 
of thirty-four insolvent banks for the purpose of enforc- 
ing their individual liability, of which $1,458,834 has 
been collected." 



ii4 THE NEW ERA IN 

From the above it will be seen that the Comp- 
troller was able to collect from the individual 
shareholders of thirty-four insolvent banks less 
than one and one-half million dollars. Taking* 
that as the average per cent, of seizable property 
of national bank shareholders outside of their 
reported assets, and about another ninety million 
dollars must be reckoned as standing against 
your indebtedness. But let us be generous and 
call it a hundred million. This added to your 
seven hundred and sixteen million capital, sur- 
plus and specie on hand, will give you seizable 
property to the amount ot eight hundred and 
sixteen million dollars against an indebtedness 
of one billion two hundred and thirty-eight 
millions. Thus proving that the fact that the 
shareholders in national banks are personally 
responsible does not make the creditors doubly 
secure, as claimed by the Comptroller. Now, 
sir, this one billion two hundred and thirty- 
eight million dollars which you have loaned to 
the people, you have promised to redeem every 
dollar of it. It is the same as your note 
of hand. It is your debt. Yet more than four 
hundred million dollars of this debt is unsecured. 
That is to say, if all the seizable property of 
those sinks of iniquity called national banks was 
sold at its par value, and the proceeds used to 
redeem your promises to pay, the people would 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. II5 

find themselves more than four hundred million 
dollars short of their just dues. So the truth is, 
you are drawing interest on more than $400,- 
000,000 of unsecured debts. I wonder not that you 
ask for a recharter. The interest on that four 
hundred million unsecured debt of yours at eight 
per cent, amounts to thirty-two millions per 
annum, or thirteen thousand, two hundred and 
twenty-one dollars to each national bank. This 
is a fine income for each of your national banks 
to draw from the people on a debt which you 
can never pay. And you are allowed to increase 
that debt to your heart's content. The only 
limit to the deposits, which you may receive, is 
the amount of money the people have to deposit ; 
and the more you receive the more you owe. 
Hence the deeper you plunge into debt the more 
money you have to loan and the more interest 
you draw from the people. But it is right the 
opposite with me. The larger my debt the more 
interest I pay. Now, sir, it is useless for you to 
ask me to set you up in business so that you may 
draw interest on your debts, while I am obliged 
to pay interest on mine. 

N. B. S. Other banking systems are drawing 
interest on their debts the same as I am. Why 
do you not assail them? 

Towsides. Very well, sir. Since you are so 
anxious to have me assail other banking systems 



n6 



THE NEW ERA IN 



I will accommodate } 7 ou. To assail any banking- 
system, however, and, indeed, condemn any and 
all of the infernal liberty destroying institutions, 
it is only necessary to simply state their condi- 
tion. I will begin b} r presenting the following 
table from page 4 of Comptroller's report for 
1878: 



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REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 117 

Now, sir, the above is a picture for you. Look 
upon it. The total capital of the national banks 
in round numbers, in 1878, was four hundred 
and seventy millions; 90 cent, of this was given 
back to them in currency by the government, 
leaving them of capital actually invested only 
forty-seven millions. The total capital of all 
other banks was, in round numbers, two hundred 
and five millions. This, added to the forty- 
seven millions, which was the actual investment 
of the national banks, gives us for the whole 
six thousand four hundred and fifty-six banks a 
total invested capital of two hundred and fifty- 
two millions. The people had deposited with 
those banks one billion nine hundred and nine- 
teen million dollars, more than seven times as 
much money as the banks had invested. In 
other words, the banks of the country are using 
more than seven dollars of the people's money 
for every one of their own invested. Why, sir, 
there is no principle of equity or common sense 
in any banking system in this country. They 
are the ingenious contrivances of money sharks 
to rob the people, and to concentrate wealth and 
power into the hands of the few; and most 
admirably do they answer the purpose for which 
they were designed. I remember the statement 
of the Comptroller (on page 16 of his report) 
that the people had lost more money through the 



Il8 THE NEW ERA IN 

failures of State and savings banks in two years 
than they had through the national banks since 
the} 7 came into existence. If this be true, the 
loss to the people through the failure of those 
and the national banks combined at a low esti- 
mate is four million dollars per annum. Now, 
sir, permit those devilish banking institutions to 
prey upon the country another twenty years, and 
they will have swallowed up eighty million dollars 
more of the people's earnings through failures 
alone — a sum equal to about two thousand dollars 
to every township in the United States. This is 
frightful, with wages at one dollar per day. 
Allowing three hundred working days in a year, 
it would require one hundred men to work two 
thousand six hundred and sixty-six years to earn 
that amount of money. 

N. B. S. You appear to be as much opposed 
to other banking systems as you are to mine. 

Towsides. Yes, sir, I am. There is very little 
to choose between them. They are all relics of 
barbarism. They are all extortioners. 

N. B. S. Well, sir, if you pronounce all banks 
extortioners, for myself I have this to say. I 
loaned you money at your own solicitation. I did 
not ask you to borrow money of me at any rate 
of interest. I advise you to keep out of debt; 
then you will not need to borrow money, and 
banks and high rates of interest will not effect } r ou. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. II9 

Towsides. I have seen much that was what is 
called cheeky. But all I have ever seen in that 
line is climaxed, when a banker, who is banking 
on seven dollars of borrowed money to every one 
of his own, advises me to keep out of debt, and 
follows that advice with the remark, that by so 
doing high rates of interest will not effect me. 
Why, sir, you get rich by doing business in a 
perpetual state of insolvency. You are in debt 
for more than four hundred million dollars more 
than you are worth. You are banking on the 
peoples' money with a very small sprinkling of 
your own. Hence advice to keep out of debt 
comes with very poor grace from you, sir. 

N. B. S. The advice is good for you. 

Towsides. The advice may be good for me, 
but to compel you to live up to that principle 
would be to compel you to quit the banking 
business. You bank on your debts. But, sir, the 
most wickedness lies in that part of your state- 
ment, in which you said that if I keep out of 
debt banks and high rates of interest would not 
effect me.. That you know to be false. That 
dishonest statement, so often made by bankers 
and money loaners, is to conceal a very import ant 
economic principle, which if the people under- 
stood, they would not permit you to control the 
rates of interest to the extent that you now do. 
Hence your desire to conceal it. You know that 



120 THE NEW ERA IN 

labor pays everything. You know that I pay 
interest on money whether I am in debt or not. 

N. B. S. Pray tell me how } r ou pay interest on 
money when you do not owe any? 

Towsides. I will tell you, sir; not because you 
do not know already, for you do. There is not 
a banker on earth but that knows that labor pays 
the interest on money, but they do not want the 
people to understand it. 

Here Snyder, who is a mechanic, joins in the 
conversation. 

Snyder. Mr. Towsides, if you are going to 
explain how the laborer pays interest on money 
when he does not owe any, I want to hear the 
explanation. I am a laborer, and feel that I ought 
to understand such things, especially since the 
veto power is in the hands of the people, and my 
vote has a direct bearing on my interests. I may 
be able to lighten my burden by my vote. If it 
is true that labor pays the interest on money, it 
is a very important truth, and the rates of inter- 
est a matter of great consequence to me. 

Towsides. Certainly, sir; rates of interest is 
a matter of very great importance to the labor- 
ing and producing classes. Money is the medium 
by which all other commodities are exchanged; 
and when the price of money is high, of course 
that of commodities and labor must be corres- 
pondingly low. To illustrate: Let us suppose 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 121 

wheat to be the medium of exchange instead of 
gold, and we will call every bushel one dollar. 
Now, it is plain that if ten cents be added to the 
cost of every bushel of wheat which I may be 
using as money in the purchase of commodities, 
I cannot give as much wheat in exchange for a 
stated quantity of beef, pork or any other com- 
modity as I could if my wheat cost me ten cents 
less to the bushel. In other words, ten per cent, 
more of other commodities must be given for a 
bushel of wheat, in consequence of the ten cents 
having been added to the cost. The same results 
follow an addition to the cost of gold, silver, nickel, 
copper or paper money. You purchase my pro- 
duce this year with money worth ten per cent, 
interest, and pay me one dollar per bushel for 
my wheat. But if, by the time I have raised 
another crop money becomes worth twenty per 
cent, interest, you can afford to exchange only 
ninety cents of your money for a bushel of my 
wheat, because your money (the medium of 
exchange) is worth ten per cent, more than it 
was the previous year. If during the next year 
money becomes worth thirty per cent., you can 
afford to exchange only eighty cents of your 
money for a bushel of my wheat, because money 
(the medium of exchange) is worth ten per cent, 
more than it, was the previous year. Hence, you 
see that whatever is added to the present rates 



122 THE NEW ERA IN 

of interest on money is taken from the price of 
my farm produce. On the other hand, whatever 
is taken from the present rate of interest on 
money is added to the price of my farm produce. 
If you purchase my wheat this year with money 
worth twenty per cent, interest, and can afford 
to pay me one dollar per bushel, and the next 
year the interest on money falls to ten per cent., 
you can then afford to pay me one dollar and 
ten cents per bushel, because the money you are 
exchanging for my wheat is worth ten per cent, 
less than it was the previous year. If during the 
next year the interest on money should fall from 
ten to three per cent., the seven per cent, differ- 
ence would be added to the price of my wheat. 
The illustrations are made upon the hypothesis 
that the market price is uninfluenced by rates of 
interest, which is not strictly true. But I make 
the illustration in this way for the purpose of 
showing plainer the effects of interest upon those 
who do not borrow money, and the illustration 
is no less just and may be absolutely correct in 
individual cases, like the following: For example, 
farm produce is worth a certain price in the 
New York market. The buyer travels into the 
country to purchase produce with money which 
he happens to have on hand, or which he 
may have borrowed for the purpose. It 
makes no difference, however, how he came 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 23 

by the money, its market value at the bank 
is a certain per cent. He must get pay for 
his time and expenses, together with a cer- 
tain per cent, on the money invested. If the 
rate of interest is 5 per cent., or if it be 10 per 
cent., he must make that per cent, out of some- 
body. How is he to do it ? Fie cannot raise 
the prices in the New York market, neither can 
he compel the railroads to carry for less. There 
is only one way for him to get his interest back, 
viz.: to pay so much less for farm produce. 
Thus the farmer pays the interest on that money 
in a lower price for the products of his labor. I 
trust you now see how high rates of interest 
effect those who do not borrow money. 

Snyder. Yes, sir, I do. I see that the higher 
the rates of interest on money the less you 
farmers get for your crops, and, of course, the 
less you get for your crops the less you can 
afford to pay your hired help. Hence, high rates 
of interest are very detrimental to the whole 
agricultural community. In short, you agricul- 
turists pay the interest on money indirectly by a 
lower price on your crops, whether you borrow 
or not — the difference being that those who bor- 
row get a double dose by paying the interest 
directly and indirectly. I now see, sir, that 
national banking system lied when he told you 
that if you would keep out of debt, high rates 



124 THE NEW ERA IN 

of interest would not effect you. And I am 
astonished, Mr. Towsides, that you farmers do 
not look sharper after your interest. I was struck 
with your remark that if the present rate of 
interest was lowered from ten to three per cent., 
the difference of seven per cent, would be added 
to the present price of your farm produce. I can 
see that that is true, and it is fact of great 
importance to the farming community. I notice 
that statisticians estimate the net gain of the 
nations wealth at from 2^ to t>% P er cent., 
probably three per cent, is about correct. If that 
be so, your net income from your farm is about 
three per cent. Only think: you might double 
your present net income by lowering the present 
rate of interest on money to three or four per 
cent. The national banks do not hesitate to send 
the rate of interest up, and it will ruin the 
country and your posterity if allowed to remain 
where it is. Then why not vote it down upon 
humanitarian and patriotic principles? 

Towsides. I understand full well, sir, that any 
rate of interest above the average net gain of 
labor is usurious and ruinous, and the impovish- 
ment of the masses and the centralization of 
wealth in the hands of the money loaning class 
must be the result in any country that permits 
it. I also understand that I have a right to vote 
down the rates of interest or anything else that is 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 25 

against the public weal, especially when it 
threatens to make a despotism of this republic 
through the centralization of wealth as the present 
rates of interest are doing. Any contrivance 
of the money power to rob and burthen labor 
should be destroyed by law if no other means can 
be successfully used. But, sir, other means can 
be successfully used. We can lower the rates of 
interest and relieve labor without forbidding a 
man by law to receive for his own money such 
interest as he may see fit or can get. 

Snyder. How can it be accomplished? 

Towsides. I have afcplan. Will you help me 
execute it? 

Snyder. Well, sir, I do not know what to 
think about that. You agriculturalists ought to 
attend to that matter, you have it to pay. 

Towsides. Do not high rates of interest effect 
you the same as it does me ? Do you not pay 
the interest on money the same as I do whether 
you borrow or not? 

Snyder. I do not understand that I do. I am 
a mechanic and work in the city. I am a con- 
sumer, and if the ten per cent, interest on money 
compels you to sell your produce ten per cent, 
less (and it does), then of course so much of my 
provisions as comes from the farm I get ten per 
cent, cheaper. 
'Towsides. Not at all, sir. Although you are 



126 THE NEW ERA IN 

a mechanic and a consumer living in the city r 
yet you do not get your farm provisions any 
cheaper because the banker's ten per cent, com- 
pels me to sell for that much less. You do not 
buy your farm provisions directly from the 
farmer. The grocer steps in between. And that 
grocer is using money in his business that is 
worth ten per cent, interest. He must make 
profit enough on his goods to cover his time and 
other expenses, together with the interest on his 
money invested, else he comes out behind in his 
enterprise. He cannot afford to sell provisions 
to you as cheaply as he^ could, if the money 
invested in his business was worth only three 
per cent. Do you understand it, sir? 

Snyder. Yes, sir; the provision dealer comes 
in with his ten per cent, money and prevents me 
from gaining anything by your loss. But, so 
far as I can see, I do not pay interest on money 
unless I borrow it. It is true that if the banker 
did not charge ten per cent, interest on mone} r ,. 
the provision dealer would not be obliged to 
charge me that much extra for provisions in 
order to make himself whole. But the banker's 
ten per cent, compels you to sell that much 
cheaper; so that leaves me, when I have pur- 
chased my provisions, precisely where I should 
be if there was no interest on money. If the ban- 
ker did not charge the ten per cent, interest, you 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 27 

would charge a higher price for your produce; 
so what difference does it make to me (the con- 
sumer) whether you or the banker gets the ten 
per cent, so long as it does not affect me? 

Towsides. I think it ought to make a differ- 
ence. The banker is rich. I am a poor, hard- 
working farmer. I need your assistance and 
sympathy; the banker does not. Besides, you 
admit that the present rates of interest will 
impoverish the agricultural community, and 
finally ruin the country, and advise that they be 
voted down, upon humanitarian and patriotic 
principles. 

Snyder. Yes, sir; and I hope the present rates 
of interest will be lowered on your account. I 
am on the side of the agriculturalist; but you can 
not expect me to feel the deep interest in this 
matter that I could if my own pocket was 
touched. 

Towsides. I notice, sir, that your patriotism is 
largely in your pocket. 

Snyder. I confess, Mr. Towsides, that I am 
influenced in my political action largely by my 
own individual interests and the present necessi- 
ties of those who are dependent upon me for 
support. I am obliged to be so influenced. I 
reside in Philadelphia. We have a beautiful city. 
Earth has none fairer. Wealth and luxury 
abound there. But you will see, by the published 



-T28 THE NEW ERA IN 

statistics for 1880, that the average wages for 
the mechanics of our city is a little less than 
$315 per year. I have a family of five, my- 
self included, which is considered an average 
family. Now, when you come to divide $315 
into five parts, you will see that each member of 
my family is living on $65 per year, a less 
amount than it requires to support a pauper. Do 
you wonder that I am influenced by my pocket? 
My employers are capitalists; they own stock in 
national banks as well as in the business in which 
I am employed. They will be offended if I vote 
with you against high rates of interest; they may 
discharge me. The market is well supplied with 
manufactured goods; the demand is small, and 
they are not pressed for help, and I cannot afford 
to offend them under such circumstances, unless 
I can better my financial condition by so doing. 
Great God! sir, I love my country, and would 
die for it. But I cannot face the hungry stare of 
my darling family; so please do not blame me 
for being influenced by my pocket, as you call it. 
Towsides. I feel to reprove myself for what 
I said with regard to your patriotism. I did not 
fully understand your situation. I now see that 
it is more desperate than I had anticipated, 
although I knew it must be bad from the fact 
that you have been forming trades unions and 
the like for your protection. All this shows a 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 1 29 

condition of things over which I have felt deeply 
and sadly. But, sir, I am rejoiced to be able to 
show you that you can better your financial con- 
dition b}' your political action. But first, how- 
ever, I will show you how you pay interest on 
money when }~ou do not owe any. 

Snyder. Very well, sir, if you show me that 
I pay interest on money when I do not owe any, 
I will do anything honorable to lower the rates, 
for God knows my burthens are heavy, and I 
shall~ rejoice at an opportunity to lighten them. 

Towsides. All right, my heavy laden brother: 
I am glad to have your attention to this very 
important subject. To illustrate how you pay 
interest on money when you do not owe an)', we 
will say that you are employed in manufacturing 
woolen goods; your employers are using money 
in their business worth to them ten per cent, 
interest; that ten per cent, they must make out 
of somebody, over and above the pay for their 
time and other expenses, and you are exchanging 
your labor for that money just the same as I am 
exchanging my produce, and that ten per cent, 
interest is deducted from the price of } T our labor 
precisely as it is from the price of my produce. 
If I purchase }'our labor with money worth ten 
per cent, interest at the bank, I cannot afford to 
exchange as much of my money for one of your 
day's labor as I could if that money was worth 



I30 THE NEW ERA IN 

only three per cent, at the bank. Hence you 
see it is the same as though the rate of interest 
was deducted from your wages and the balance 
paid over to you. In other words, you pay the 
interest on money in a lower price for your labor. 
Now, sir, do you understand how it is that you 
pay interest on money when you do not owe any? 

Snyder. Yes, sir, I do. But what did you 
mean when you said, in substance, in the course 
of this conversation, that these illustrations which 
you have made (showing how we pay interest 
on money when we do not owe any) were not 
absolutely correct in every instance ? Do I 
understand you to admit that there is any time 
when labor does not pay the interest on money 
that is being used in business? 

Towsides. No, sir; labor always pays the 
interest on money that is being used in business. 
But the mechanic does not always pay the full 
amount in a reduction of his wages; neither 
does the farmer pay the full amount in a reduc- 
tion on the price of his produce; but both the 
mechanic and the farmer, and, indeed, the whole 
industrial and consuming class, pays the interest 
on the entire volume of money in circulation, 
whatever that interest may be. 

Snyder. Please explain a little further. 

Towsides. Well, sir, suppose you could get 
money to use in the manufacture of cotton cloth 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. I3I 

at three per cent, interest, you could manufacture 
cotton cloth (other things being equal) about 
seven per cent, cheaper than it is now being 
manufactured, could you not? 

Snyder. Yes, sir; because the money invested 
in my business would cost me seven per cent, 
less than that which is being used in the manu- 
facture of cotton cloth generally. 

Towsides. Very well, sir. If the next year 
your money was to cost you ten per cent, you 
could not manufacture goods any cheaper than 
other manufacturers, could you? 

Sn} 7 der. No, sir. 

Towsides. Then the people could not buy your 
goods as cheap by about seven per cent, as they 
did the year before, could they? 

Snyder. No, sir. 

Towsides. Then, you see, lowering the rates 
of your interest lowered the price of your goods, 
while raising the rate of your interest raised the 
price of your goods. In other words, when the 
rates of interest were lowered, the people bought 
their goods lower; when the rates of interest 
were raised, the people paid a higher price for 
their goods. Hence, you see, the people are 
helping to pay the interest on money indirectly 
by paying a higher price for their goods. 

Snyder. Why do you say that the people help 
to pay interest on money by paying a higher 



I32 THE NEW ERA IN 

price for their goods, when they are purchasing 
those goods with the very same money which 
you say lowers the prices of everything that is. 
exchanged for it? 

Towsides. Because the goods are consumed 
by the people. You see the banker gets the 
interest on money in the first instance, and then 
whoever uses the money in business must get 
that interest back from whoever deals with him. 
To illustrate: The manufacturer, we will say 
first uses this ten per cent, money in the manu- 
facture of goods. He must get that ten per cent, 
back else he cannot make his business profitable; 
so he will endeavor to purchase his raw material 
cheaper. He will endeavor to get his help cheaper. 
If he fails in both instances he must charge more 
for the manufactured goods. Hence what he fails, 
to get out of the producer of raw material and 
out of his hired help, he must get out of those 
who consume the goods. And you being a con- 
sumer as well as a mechanic, he has two chances 
to get his ten per cent, out of you. One on your 
wages and the other when you purchase (as you 
do) the ver}/ goods you have helped to manufac- 
ture. He may also have two chances on me.. 
One, should I happen to have raw material for 
sale, such as he is using in his business. On this 
he would endeavor to crowd my price down. 
The other when he comes to sell me his manu- 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 33 

factured goods. He must get it somewhere. 
Thus you see the interest on money is paid by 
the producer and consumer. 

Snyder. I understand you perfectly. I now 
see my duty plainly. I now realize the impor- 
tance of this matter of interest on money. Labor 
pays every cent of it and there is no escape from 
it. The man who enters business with money 
worth ten per cent, interest, is not to blame for 
collecting that ten per cent, from those who deal 
with him. He must do it or fail in business. 
The interest on money is collected from the 
people indirectly under a natural law of trade, 
which is as inexorable as the law under which 
the sun performs its diurnal marches across the 
heavens. 

Towsides. I am glad that you see this impor- 
tant principle so clearly. Now, sir, do you realize 
what the American people are innocently doing 
to concentrate the wealth of the nation into the 
hands of the money-loaning class, and thereby 
destroy their own prosperity and liberty. Why, 
sir, there is loaned to this people, by all classes 
of banks, to say nothing of other loan agencies, 
trust and loan companies, etc., more than two 
billions of dollars. Not less than seven-eighths, 
or one billion seven hundred and fifty million 
dollars, of this money is furnished by the people, 
as I have previously shown. Now, stand amazed 



134 THE NEW ERA IN 

at the strange fact that the American people are 
furnishing a set of bankers with this vast amount of 
mone} 7 for almost nothing, and in most instances 
entirely so (especially since our last shameless 
Congress repealed the bank tax on deposits), and 
borrowing that money back again, and paying 
the banker from six to twenty-four per cent, for 
the use of it. Why, sir, the interest on the sum 
of money, at eight per cent., amounts to one 
hundred and forty million dollars per annum, or 
more than two hundred and sixty dollars per 
minute. This sum the borrowers are paying 
directly to the banks, while the effect upon the 
industrial class is, that they are working for less 
wages, or selling the products of their labor for 
less money, or paying a higher price for the 
necessaries of life. 

Snyder. You are right Mr. Towsides, and this 
conversation with you has let much light into my 
mind on this banking business. I now begin to 
have some intelligent idea of money and its func- 
tions and how it effects the pockets of the people 
as the rates of interest are high or low. All 
laboring people, whether they borrow money or 
not, have a powerful enemy in high rates of 
interest and the banking systems that impose 
them. 

Towsides. I am glad that the light is beginning 
to dawn upon you. But, sir, as clearly as you 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 35 

see the evil effects of high rates of interest, and 
think you see the iniquity of banking systems? 
3^et the worst has not been brought to your 
notice. What would you say if I should tell you 
that the banks have entire control of the business 
interests of the country. That they can make 
times hard or easy; raise and lower the price of 
your labor and that of commodities when it suits 
their will to do so. 

Snyder. I should say that we are living under 
a despotism more absolute than that of Russia, 
and that the imperative duty of the people is to 
destroy it quickly. But can it be true Mr. Tow- 
sides, that the banking interest can effect the 
price of my labor and that of property and the 
general prosperity of the country? I am unwilling 
to believe such a shocking statement. I see too 
much that is startling in it. If it be true that the 
money power can depreciate the price of pro- 
perty and buy while it is low, then raise the price 
again and sell while it is high, and thus place the 
people continually and keep the country alter- 
nating between good and hard times. 

Towsides. Certainty, sir; that is precisely 
what the banks can do and have done for long- 
years, and will continue to do as long as they are 
permitted to exist. 

Snyder. Pray tell me how the banks can 
change the price of labor not employed by them, 



I36 THE NEW ERA IN 

and that of property which they do no not own? 

Towsides. By changing the amount of money 
in circulation. 

Snyder. Does changing the amount of money 
in circulation change prices? 

Towsides. Certainly it does. If the volume of 
money in circulation is made smaller prices fall. 
If the volume is made larger prices raise. There 
is no dispute among writers on political economy 
on this point. All agree thet contracting and 
expanding the currency raises and lowers prices. 
(See page 284, Part First). 

Snyder. Then you say that the banks do change 
the volume of money in circulation, and thereby 
change the price of my labor and affect my 
prosperity ? 

Towsides. Certainly; bankers influenced Con- 
gress to contract the volume of currency from 
1865 to 1875, and lowered the price of labor 
and property, and thereby brought the terri- 
ble disaster of 1873 upon the country, and the 
dreadful suffering that followed. (For posi- 
tive proof of the truth of this statement see Part 
First, pages 285 to 320.) and in 1880, in one 
short month, the New York banks contracted 
their currency, made money scarce, and in some 
instances received as high as one hundred per 
cent, interest, sent prices tumbling down, caused 
failures in business, and checked the flow of our 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 37 

produce to foreign lands. Such, sir, is the power 
of the American banking system over the busi- 
ness property and prosperity of this mighty 
nation. (For proof, see testimony of their own 
organs, Part First, pages 510 to 523.) 

Snyder. The fact that a set of bankers can 
raise and lower my wages and the price of my 
property, and make money by so doing, is more 
terrible than anything I had ever dreamed of as 
being possible in our republic. Why, sir, if the 
banks can make money by bringing disaster upon 
the people, they are none too good to do it. 
Money-making is their business. 

Towsides. You are right, sir. And I tell you 
that every general business disaster and hard 
times that has ever come upon the countr} 7 has 
been brought about by the banks contracting their 
currency. They contract their currency, make 
money scarce and dear, and, of course, the price 
of other property must fall; then the bankers 
gather in the earnings of their innocent victims. 

When this is done they enlarge the volume of 
money. The price of commodities and other 
property raises, business revives, and the wheels 
of industry move glibly on until the currency is 
again contracted. Thus the country alternates 
between good and hard times, while the banks 
reap harvest after harvest from weary toiL And 
when business stagnates, the injured people, not 



I38 THE NEW ERA IN 

knowing the cause of their suffering, call it hard 
times, and there they rest. (See statement of 
James Walker, Professor of Political Economy in 
Yale College, Part First, pages 499, 500, 501.) 

Snyder. I wonder not that that immortal 
patriot, Andrew Jackson, had an undying hatred 
of banks. They can limit the prosperity of the 
American people, and say when the country shall 
rejoice, and when it shall mourn. 

Towsides. Yes, sir; and defy the people to 
prevent it, too. See the boast of Jay Gould's 
or^an, the New York Tribune : That the banks 
can, on twenty-four hours' notice, act with such 
power that the American Congress even cannot 
resist them. (Part First, page 54.) 

Snyder. Well, Mr. Towsides, I thank God 
that the veto power is in our hands. Were it 
not for that the national banks would continue 
their ruinous reign another twenty years, and by 
that time not much of American liberty would 
be left. Let us veto the national banking law, 
and hurl the audacious and corrupt Congress that 
passed it from power. 

Towsides. I am with you, my friend. We will 
strike down the national banks by refusing to 
ratify the law rechartering them as passed by 
Congress. But there will still remain our four 
thousand State savings and private banks, which 
are scarcely less despotic and dangerous than the 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 39 

national banks. These are not so easily reached 
by our votes. What shall we do with them? 

Snyder. We can reach them through the State 
Legislatures. The banks must die that the 
people may prosper and the Republic live. And 
I tell you, Mr. Towsides, when the people come 
to understand that they are really furnishing the 
banks with the means to bank on, and are paying 
interest on their own money, and securing its 
redemption with their own property. They will 
not be long finding a way to get rid of banks. 

Towsides. In my opinion the quickest and 
most rational way to break the power of banks 
and relieve labor from their intolerable oppression 
is for the government to adopt the Franklinian 
system of money, and let the people loan their 
own money and save the interest for themselves, 
instead of letting the banks loan their money 
and pocket the interest. The people have 
deposited in banks not less than two billions 
of dollars. This vast sum of money the banks 
are loaning back to the people and pocketing the 
interest. Now, if the government (which is the 
people) were to establish loan agencies, those 
having money to deposit would much rather 
deposit it with the government, where it would 
be perfectly safe, than to deposit with banks and 
loose it, as they frequently do. Then, too, the 
interest paid on this money, which the govern- 



I40 THE NEW ERA IN 

ment might loan to the people on real estate 
security would be used to pay the government 
expenses and relieve the people from the burthen 
of taxation. To illustrate: I am credibly 
informed that one loan agent in Willson county, 
Kansas, has loaned as high as twenty-five thou- 
sand dollars per month. There are many loan 
agents in the county; but, to be moderate, we 
will say that this one loans one-third of all the 
money. The amount loaned per annum will 
then be nine hundred thousand dollars, and the 
interest at ten per cent, will amount to ninety 
thousand dollars per annum, which is probably 
more than the whole amount of tax paid in that 
county. The money loaned in the West belongs 
largely to Eastern capitalists, and the interest 
paid of course goes to the East. Why should 
not the Western people stop this immense flow 
of money from West to East by the adoption 
of the Franklinian system of money? And why 
should not the Eastern people favor the adoption 
of the Franklinian system of money, inasmuch 
as it will lower the rates of interest, make money 
loaning less profitable, and thereby induce their 
own capitalists to use their money in home enter- 
prises, instead of sending it to the West to be 
loaned ? 

Snyder. The plan you recommend for breaking 
the power of banks, lowering the rates of interest 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 141 

and relieving labor, looks to me like a common 
sense principle. But why do you call it the 
Franklinian system of money? 

Towsides. Because it was orignatecl and intro- 
duced in this country by that world-renowned 
statesman and philosopher Benjamin Franklin. 
For a full history of the system and its effect 
upon the prosperity of the people of Pennsylvania, 
as given *by Dr. Franklin and others, together 
with Franklin's essay on money (see Part First, 
pages 390 to 427.) Once we get Dr. Franklin's 
essay on money, and a history of the working of 
his system into the hands of the people, the banks 
will be out of a job speedily. In addition to the 
glorious history of the fifty years reign of Frank- 
lin's monetary svstem, as given in Part First, I 
will offer the following from Abbott's Life of 
Benjamin Franklin: 

11 Between the years 1740 and 1775, while abundance 
reigned in Pennsylvania and there was peace in all her 
borders, a more happy and prosperous population could 
not perhaps be found on this globe. In every home 
there was comfort. The people generally were highly 
moral, and knowledge was extensively diffused." 

The glorious season of prosperity and happi 
ness above described, was during the time when 
the government loaned its own money and saved 
the interest for the people, instead of giving it to 
bankers, and also controlled the volume of money 



I42 THE NEW ERA IN 

in circulation, thereby keeping prices uniform 
and securing prosperity for themselves. The way 
to continued prosperity and happiness without 
intermission for this people, is just as plain as the 
road to mill, when once they learn what it is 
that controls the money price of their labor and 
its results. 

Snyder. I see the principle you advocate and 
I endorse it. I only want an opportunity to work 
for it. I think I can show this matter in its true 
light in my own neighborhood. The people 
begin to feel that the leading newspapers are 
controlled by the money power and are keeping 
them blind as regards their own best interest.. 
They are ready to listen now, and I am ready to 
preach the gospel that will save them. 

Here National Banking System again joins 
in the conversation. 

N. B. S. I have listened attentively to the con- 
versation between you gentlemen, and I see very 
plainly that you intend to set the government to 
banking. How do you expect to get your bankers 
to handle the money and do the business? 

Towsides. In this particular we shall depart 
from the Franklin system. We will elect our 
bankers from among the people, whereas under 
that they were appointed. 

N. B. S. The bankers so elected will be loaning 
money to those who will support them for office, 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 43 

and refusing those who will not, and thus secure 
friends to work for their re-election. 

Towsides. Not at all, sir. The bankers whom 
we shall elect will have no power to grant or 
refuse favors. The man who brings the properly 
certified security, according to the Franklinian 
system, will be entitled to money, and the banker 
will be powerless to refuse him. Neither can 
the banker loan money without the properly cer- 
tified security according to the Franklinian 
system of loaning money. T^his will entirely 
destroy the opportunity for that dishonest and 
dangerous favoritism now enjoyed by the banks. 
Then, too, the bankers, whom we shall elect, will 
be required to give bonds, sufficient for the ample 
security of every dollar entrusted to their care. 
This will secure the people generally as well as 
individually against any possible loss by dishonest 
bankers. Another very great improvement on 
the present system of banking. Another very 
important consideration in this matter, is that 
under the new system our bankers will be our 
servants to be discharged when they neglect to 
regard our interest. They will not be at liberty 
to open and close their banks when they see lit y 
but will be obliged to obey the behest of the 
people in all things. In short, the government 
loaning money will destroy the power of the banks 
to oppress the people and corrupt politics. 



144 THE NEW ERA IN 

Sr^der. I have a point I wish to call your 
attention to Mr. Banking S}'stem which Mr. Jones 
and Mr. Towsides seemes to have overlooked. 
While you gentlemen have been talking I have 
been figuring a little, and I will call your attention 
to Comptroller's report for 1878, page 57. It 
reads very strange. The following are his words : 

" One of the most invaluable features of the national 
banking system is that requiring each association to 
have at all times on hand an available cash reserve of 
specified proportions as compared with its deposits and 
circulation. The proportion required for banks located 
in the financial centers of the country is 25 per cent, of 
their deposits. For all other banks the required pro- 
portion is 15 per cent, of their deposits. The propor- 
tion of reserve to circulation is the same for all banks, 
namely, five per cent, which amount is to be at all 
times on deposit with the Treasurer of the United 
States, to be held and used by him in the redemption 
of their notes. This sum is also permitted to be counted as 
part of the required reserve on deposits." 

In addition to the above I will add the follow- 
ing from the Comptroller's report 1878, page 5: 

11 The reserve cities, in addition to New York, Boston, 
Philadelphia and Baltimore, are Albany, Pittsburgh, 
Washington, New Orleans, Louisville, Cincinnati, 
Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis and 
San Francisco. 

If I understand the above statements aright, 
the banks in New York City must hold each one 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 45 

in its own vault a reserve of 25 per cent, upon its 
deposits. But in the other fifteen principal cities 
only one-half of this 25 per cent must be kept in 
their own vault, the other half being allowed to 
be deposited in other banks. Am I correct, sir? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Snyder. The law permits banks to loan depos- 
its, by whomsoever deposited, does it not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir. 

Snyder. Then, of course, this one-half of the 
25 per cent, reserve fund which the banks in 
those principal cities deposit with other banks is 
loaned to the people the same as other money, is 
it not? 

N. B. S. Yes, sir; banks loan deposits, no 
matter by whom deposited. 

Snyder. Then the truth is, the banks in those 
fifteen cities have on hand only 12^ per cent, 
upon their deposits, and not the 25 per cent., as 
stated by the Comptroller? 

N. B. S. The Comptroller did not make a mis- 
statement; he admitted that the banks in the 
fifteen principal cities, outside of New York, were 
allowed to deposit one half of their reserves in 
other banks. 

Snyder. But, sir, his statement is misleading, 
and the duplicity lies in the fact that he stated 
that the banks in those cities are required to keep 
a reserve of 25 per cent, upon deposits. The 



I46 THE NEW ERA IN 

accompanying admission that one-half of that 25 
per cent, may be deposited with other banks does 
not destroy the deceptive character of his state- 
ment. For, from the statement, as a whole, the 
people, not being acquainted with the knavery of 
the banking system, believe that the 25 percent. 
of reserves are kept on hand by bankers, either in 
their own bank or some other, to redeem deposits. 
The statement is intended to conceal the real 
truth, which is, that one-half of that 25 per cent. 
of reserves on hand (so-called) really are not 
reserves on hand at all, but are deposited with 
other banks, and loaned to people the same as 
money deposited by individuals. Now, think of 
the baseness of legislators who who will allow 
the banking interests to bribe them, or who will 
become a party to the making of a law pretend- 
ing to require the national banks to keep an 
amount equal to 25 per cent, of their deposits, 
with which to redeem those deposits, and at the 
same time so frame the law as to allow the banks 
to deposit one-half of that reserve with other 
banks to be loaned out. Such legislation is an 
insult to the American people. It is intended to 
deceive them, and it does. It makes them believe 
their money deposited in national banks very 
much safer than it really is. It also enables the 
banks to report a much larger reserve than they 
really have. It enables them to report a smaller 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 47 

profit than they really make. In fact, the law is 
a twin brother to the one last discussed relative 
to the five per cent, deposited at Washington to 
secure national bank circulation, and which five 
per cent, the banks are allowed to count as a 
part of their reserve with which to redeem 
deposits, although they cannot use it for that or 
any other purpose while they remain in the bank- 
ing business. 

N. B. S. I have admitted that I have worked 
lor my own interest as a corporation. 

Snyder. And for your edification I will con- 
sider the two laws last mentioned. We will see 
how they effect the banker's interest. We will 
have John Sullivan engage in the banking busi- 
ness, with one hundred thousand dollars invested 
In bonds. He deposits them with the govern- 
ment, and receives back ninety thousand dollars 
in currency, eighty thousand of which he loans 
to the people. Now, a sum equal to five per 
cent, of the eighty thousand must be deposited 
in Washington for the government to use in the 
redemption of that circulation, the said five per 
cent, amounts to four thousand dollars. He 
receives on deposit and loans to the people, say 
one hundred thousand dollars. To redeem this 
one hundred thousand dollars it is pretended that 
the law requires him to keep on hand a reserve 
fund equal to 25 per cent, of the amount of his 



I48 THE NEW ERA IN 

deposits, which is twenty-five thousand dollars. 
Now, really one-half of that twenty-five thousand 
dollars is deposited in other banks and loaned to 
the people. But the bankers' report shows a 
reserved fund of twenty-five thousand dollars,, 
and that report is sworn to by him. But he has 
included in that report four thousand dollars 
which cannot be used by him for any purpose 
whatever. So far he has testified falsely, but 
it is according to law, and helps to conceal the 
real condition of the national banks. He has 
also included in that report twelve thousand five 
hundred dollars which is deposited in other 
banks and loaned to the people. Now, he has 
in his report sixteen thousand five hundred dollars 
as reserves on hand that are not reserves on 
hand at all. Thus, while his oath accompanying 
his report is according to law, it is in effect a 
falsehood. So far I have only spoken of the 
national banks in the principal cities. For the 
the year 1878 those cities contained 231 banks- 
The country outside of those cities contained 
1,822 national banks. The banks outside of the 
commercial cities appear to be more highly 
favored by legislation than those inside. The 
law only pretends to require the banks outside 
of the principal cities to hold a reserve of fifteen, 
per centum upon their deposits, and three-fifths 
of that they are permitted to deposit with othe* 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 49 

banks to be loaned to the people. Thus about 
eight-tenths of our national banks may have 
one hundred thousand dollars of the people's 
money deposited with them and loaned out. And 
they pretending to have a reserve fund of fifteen 
thousand dollars on hand to redeem with, while 
at the same time nine thousand or three- 
fifths of the fifteen thousand dollars may- 
be deposited with other banks and loaned 
the same as other deposits are loaned. Now, 
let us see how Banker Sullivan stands with his 
fifteen per cent, reserves. We will say he has 
one hundred thousand dollars in deposits and 
eighty thousand dollars in currency loaned to the 
people. According to the general understanding 
he must have fifteen thosand dollars on hand 
with which to redeem those deposits. But let 
us see what the real facts are: To begin with r 
a sum equal to five per cent, of his eighty thousand 
dollars in currency, is deposited in Washington 
for the government to use in the redemption of 
that currency. This five per cent, amounts to 
four thousand dollars. This sum Sullivan is 
allowed to count as a part of his fifteen thousand 
dollars reserve. But the truth is, he is forbidden 
by law to use it for any purpose whatever while 
he remains in the banking business, so we will 
count that four thousand dollars out. In the next 
instance he is allowed to deposit three-fifths of his 



150 THE NEW ERA IN 

reserves with other banks to be loaned out, and 
as the five per cent, at Washington is counted as 
a part of his fifteen thousand dollar reserve. 
Then, of course, three-fifths means three-fifths of 
that fifteen thousand dollars, which is nine thous- 
and dollars. The nine thousand dollars loaned 
to the people, added to the four thousand dollars 
deposited at Washington, makes a total of 
thirteen thousand dollars to be deducted from 
Sullivan's fifteen thousand dollar reserve, and 
leaving an actual reserve fund of only two 
thousand dollars. Yet, under the law, he is 
allowed to report a reserve of fifteen thousand 
dollars. This is what I call legal lying, indulged 
in by bankers, upheld by a certain class of con- 
gressmen, secretaries, comptrollers, a hireling 
press and a long line of money sharks, who are 
sucking the very life blood of this republic. We 
propose to put a stop to this deviltry. We will 
have the government loan money that the country 
may live and the people prosper. 

N. B. S. Well, sir, I have this to say: If you 
undertake to set the government up in the bank- 
ing business and destroy our occupation as money 
loaners, in other words, undertake to have 
the government furnish the people with money 
instead of the banks, you have a hard job on 
hand. We will use the leading journals and all 
the avenues of intelligence possible against you. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 151 

We will not give up our business without a strug- 
gle, I assure you. 

Snyder. I wish to make one more argument. 

N. B. S. Very well; proceed, sir. 

Snyder. To illustrate my thought, I say I have 
one thousand dollars that I do not want for a time; 
I take it over to my neighbor Sullivan, the ban- 
ker, and say to him: Here, Sullivan, take this 
$1,000 and loan it or do what you please with it 
until I call for it. Sullivan takes the money and 
loans it to Hopkins at ten per cent. Now, Sulli- 
van has made ten cents on every dollar of my 
money, or one hundred dollars on the thousand. 
Now, will you tell me what benefit I received 
for allowing Sullivan to make that hundred dol- 
lars on my thousand? # 

N. B. S. You receive the benefit of a safe 
deposit for your money. 

Snyder. No, sir; I do not. It has been shown 
during this discussion that banks are not safe depos- 
its for money. So I not only allow the the banker 
to make a hundred dollars off from my thousand, 
but I run the risk of losing the whole; and the 
people all over the country are doing the same 
thing with their deposits. In addition to this, 
we (the people) are furnishing the bankers with 
three hundred and fifty million dollars of national 
bank currency at one per cent., and allowing 
them to loan it at from six to twenty-four per 



152 THE NEW ERA IN 

cent. Thus, we are furnishing } 7 ou with seven- 
eighths of the money you are doing business 
with, while } 7 ou are pocketing more than three 
hundred dollars per minute of the people's hard- 
earned money. Now, because we propose to 
have our money loaned so as to receive the 
benefit of the interest ourselves, you are going 
to make a fuss about it. 

N. B. S. I do not blame you for setting the 
government (the people, as you call it,) up in the 
banking business. I only say I shall work for my 
own interest the best I can. 

Snyder. The government (the people) is in the 
banking business now. The people furnish all 
the security and seven-eighths of the money; 
and why they should consent to be silent partners 
in the concern, and allow you to pocket all the 
profits, is a mystery which I cannot solve. And I 
here notify you that from this hour I shall use 
my best efforts to induce them to quit' it. 

Towsides. So shall I. 

Jones. So shall I. 

N. B. S. Good-b}-, gentlemen; I shall do my 
best to defeat you. 



The foregoing dialogue illustrates facts, and 
shows the real condition of national banks and 
other banks. Their effect upon the industries of 
the country. Their tyrrany. Their almost abso- 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 53 

lute control over prices, and, therefore, over the 
prosperity and consequent destiny of this great 
people. When one begins to investigate our 
monetary system, he soon wonders that it has 
been allowed to continue so long. Yet every 
advancing step reveals deeper and darker villiany, 
till humiliated, disgusted and alarmed for the 
safety ot free institutions, he marvels that the 
republic still survives, and in anguish shouts 
verially Jefferson was right when he said, "Banks 
are more dangerous to liberty than standing 
armies." The banks never made faster headway 
in the devilish business of robbing labor and cen- 
tralizing the wealth and power of the govern- 
ment against the people than they do at the 
present hour. No lover of liberty has power to 
believe in banks when once he understands 
their nature and tendenc}'. The first centen- 
nial of our existence as a nation would have 
found the American people reduced by a cunning 
manipulation of the currency, through and under 
the influence of banking corporations, to a slavery 
as humiliating and abhorent as any that afflicts 
Europe, had it not been for our vast public 
domain, which has infused new life into and 
opened new avenues for over-burdened industry. 
The one way to prevent the capitalists from 
continually securing legislation in their own 
interest and absorbing the wealth of the nation 



154 THE NEW ERA IN 

and finally destroying American liberty itself, is 
to place the veto power in the hands of the people. 
The railroad land steals, the repeal of the income 
tax law, the rechartering of the national banks, 
the contraction of the currency, and the disaster 
and suffering that followed, were all great wrongs 
inflicted upon the country, and were all possible 
from the fact that the people did not have the 
veto power within themselves. Place the veto 
power in the hands of the people, and all rail- 
road land swindlers, and, indeed, all other 
swindlers, as well as those with honest intent, 
will be obliged to come to the people and make 
their bargains directly with them. This will 
guard our public domain (what is left of it) and 
other public property from the hands of the 
plunderers, and place American liberty in charge 
of those who love it and who will protect it. 

FIFTH PLANK IN THE NEW PLATFORM. 

I would suggest that the fifth plank in the 
new platform demand: First, that only the gov- 
ernment be allowed to issue money; Second, 
that the government loan money to the people 
at a rate of interest not exceeding three per 
cent.; Third, that all money in circulation be a 
full legal tender for all debts and dues to and 
from the government and between man and 
man; Fourth, that the volume of money be 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 55 

enlarged to at least fifty dollars per capita, and 
that said volume of money shall not be dimin- 
ished nor increased except in a fixed ratio to the 
population of the country; Fifth, that the rules 
governing the loaning of said money by the 
government shall be such as to prevent wealthy 
corporations from taking it out in large quanti- 
ties for the purpose of absorbing and con- 
trolling it. 

Of the first clause in the fifth plank in the 
platform I would say that money is indispen- 
sable to the proper exchange of the products of 
labor and all property. The American people 
must have a medium of exchange. There is a 
large profit in furnishing that medium. That 
profit the people should have instead of the 
banks. The justice of this proposition will not 
be questioned when we consider the part the 
people play in the matter of money. 

First. They furnish about seven-eighths of the 
money. 

Second. They pledge their property for every 
dollar when it goes into circulation. 

Third. They guarantee its redemption, and 
own the specie which is kept in the government 
vaults for that purpose. Hence, money circu- 
lates not on the credit of the banks, but on the 
credit of the people. Clearly, then, the people 
are entitled to the profits arising from that circu- 



I56 THE NEW ERA IN 

lation. This is a common sense principle, 
admitted to be correct even by the late President 
of the Metropolitan Bank, New York. (See 
Part First, page 528.) 

Again, upon the rates of interest and the size 
and uniformity of the volume of money in circu- 
lation, the prosperity of the people almost entirely 
depends. Hence to trust corporations with the 
control of the volume of money and the rates of 
interest, through which they can control the 
business interests of the country and gather to 
themselves the earnings of the people almost 
without hinderance, is madness, and must soon 
end in the impoverishment of the people and the 
overthrow of American liberty. 

Of the second class in the fifth resolution, I 
would say it is not placed there to destroy any 
of the rights of the money-loaning class. Let the 
money loaner get from six to twenty-four and 
even forty per cent, for his money (as some of 
them do) if he can. But in the name of all that 
is good and wise, destroy, and that speedily, the 
monetary system that compels the people to pay 
those enormous rates of interest. This cannot be 
done by passing laws limiting the rates of interest. 
They are always evaded. The only way to 
lower the rates of interest and save the people 
from the greed of the money power, is to have 
the goverment loan money at a rate not exceed- 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 57 

ing the average net gain of the nation's wealth. 
When it is stated that the average net gain of 
the nation's wealth is three or three and a half 
per cent, per annum, it is not stated that that 
gain is very largely lodged in the hands of the 
money-loaning class through high rates of interest 
which is the fact. This startling truth can be 
demonstrated as follows: 

The Comptroller of the Currency estimates 
the average rate of interest on money at eight 
per cent. I believe it to be much higher than 
that. Instances are not rare in the West where 
twenty-four and sometimes as high as forty per 
cent, is paid for money; and I have already 
proven in Part First, from the money powers' 
own organs, that sometimes as high as one hun- 
dred per cent, is paid on call loans in New York 
City. But let us be moderate and estimate the 
average net gain on money loaned at six per 
cent. 

If this be correct the money-loaning class are 
making a net gain twice as large as the average 
net gain of the whole countr}\ Now it is plain 
that all the money-loaning class make is above the 
average net gain; the balance of the peo| le nust 
fall below. This reduces the average et q- x ' m 
of the people very materially and shows at what 
a fearful rate they are handing their property 
over to the money-loaning class. 



I58 THE NEW ERA IN 

Indeed it needs no further argument to prove 
that the present rates of interest are drawing the 
wealth of the nation to the money-loaning centers 
with startling rapidity, and if allowed to continue 
we shall soon have an impoverished people and 
a monied aristocracy, as cruel and despotic as 
that of the old world. 

In fact, it is only necessary to ascertain the 
amount of money loaned and the per cent, ot net 
income thereon, above the net income of labor, to 
determine with almost mathematical certainty, 
how much time it will require for the money- 
loaning class to absorb the wealth of the nation, 
and leave the people to pay such rent as their 
masters dictate — as the Irish peasantry are doing 
to-day. It is a self-evident fact that any rate 
of interest above the average net gain of labor 
will centralize the wealth and destroy the 
liberties of any people. 

The necessity for the third clause in the fifth 
resolution will be apparent when we consider 
that in a crisis, or when the balance of trade is 
against us, gold and silver always disappear. 
(They are never to be had when they are most 
needed.) Then paper money, based on specie, 
depreciates in the hands of the people, because 
its redeemer is gone, and it not being a full legal 
tender, will not be received at its face value in 
payment of all debts. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 59 

Now, the American people want a paper 
money that will always be received at its face 
value in payment of all debts, public and private, 
just the same as gold is received. Then it will 
always be just as good as gold to use as money, 
because, as money, it will do all that gold can do. 
Such paper money can be produced by making 
it receivable for all debts and dues whatsoever. 
This will abolish all distinctions in money as a 
circulating medium, and make one kind just as 
good as another at all times for domestic use. 
The Comptroller of the Currency unwittingly 
supports this view of the case in the following, 
which I find in his report for 1878, page 31: 

" If the government, also, forbearing all further 
legislation upon the subject, will discontinue the issue 
of gold certificates at the treasury, and regard gold 
coin as practically the equivalent of lawful money in 
all its disbursements, the distinction which has §0 long 
existed between coin and currency will rapidly fade 
away, and natural law will reassert its beneficent 
dominion over our financial affairs. " 

Here the Comptroller admits that if the gov- 
ernment, in all its disbursements, will treat paper 
money as the equivalent of gold, the distinction 
so long existing between the two will rapidly 
disappear. In other words, such a course on the 
part of the government will make a paper dollar 
as good as a gold dollar. 



l6o THE NEW ERA IN 

Now, if this be true of the effect of the gov- 
ernment treating paper and gold as equals in its 
disbursements, how much more true it would be 
if the government treated them as equals, also, 
in receiving its dues. 

One very important fact is deducible from the 
Comptroller's statement, viz. : That the treating 
of paper money by the government as the 
equivalent of gold will make it the equivalent of 
gold. Then it must follow that treating it as 
inferior to gold made it inferior to gold. And, 
fellow-citizens, that was just what did it. This 
is proven beyond all cavil by the celebrated 
sixty million demand notes during the war and 
afterwards. For a while the government treated 
them as inferior to gold by refusing to receive 
them in payment of import duties, as it did gold. 
This of course made them depreciate. They 
fell twenty per cent, below gold early in the 
war. But when the government changed its 
course and treated the demand notes as the 
equivalent of gold by making them a full legal 
tender for all debts, they immediately became as 
good as gold, and remained so. The govern- 
ment, through the influence of gold gamblers, 
treated the greenback as inferior to gold by 
refusing to receive it for duties on imports and 
to pay it out for interest on the public debt; so, 
of course, greenbacks depreciated. (The green- 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. l6l 

back was purposely depreciated. See Secretary 
Sherman's statement, Part First, p. 204.) Thus, 
while the government treated the greenback as 
inferior to gold, it treated the soldier as inferior to 
the bondholder by paying the soldier in depre- 
ciated greenbacks, or national bank currency, 
while it paid the bondholder in gold. Now, in the 
name of decency and humanity, let us make it 
impossible for this ever to take place again. Let 
us have a full legal tender money, and then, 
come what will, war or Shylock hoard his 
gold, or it flee across the sea, everybody will 
be obliged to receive the same kind of money in 
payment of debt, and every dollar, like the 
demand notes, will be good for its face value 
while the grand old flag waves, whether there is 
any specie to redeem it or not. 

For the fourth clause in the fifth plank there 
is not only a just demand, but a very urgent 
necessity. I have shown in Part First, from 
authentic sources, that the people are falling 
behind in their indebtedness. They are struggling 
to get out of debt. To this end, they are wear- 
ing poor clothes and living close; but, in spite of 
their best efforts, they are falling behind, a largo 
per cent, of their homes are mortgaged, and, 
unless relief comes, soon they must give them up 
to the money -loaning class. Every day their 
situation becomes more desperate. This is all 



t6z THE NEW ERA IN 

the work of the monied interests in shrinking the 
volume of money from about fifty-two dollars 
per capita to less than twenty (see Part First, p. 
289), thereby increasing the value of money and 
lowering the price of the products of labor, 
making it impossible for the people to pay their 
debts. 

Now, it is justice, in the sight of God and 
man, to place the volume of money back to where 
It was in 1865, and thereby make money easier 
•to get, to the end that the people may pay up 
their indebtedness, and save their homes from 
the clutch of Shylock, and the land remain in 
the hands of those who have earned it and 
improved it. Lay these facts before the people, 
and they will see both the justice of and the 
necessity for this course. 

If it be urged that enlarging the volume of 
money will lessen the chances to get paper money 
redeemed in specie, I answer, nobody ever wants 
a full legal tender dollar redeemed in specie. 
I would prove, also, from official figures given 
in Part First, that practically there is no 
redemption for their paper money now: first, 
because the government has not sufficient 
specie to redeem with; second, because the 
smallest amount of paper money redeemable in 
specie by the government is fifty dollars, and 
that, too, only at the sub-treasury in New York. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 63 

Thus an overwhelming majority of the common 
people are barred from the specie in the govern- 
ment vaults, not only by distance from the place 
of redemption, but by the fact that nothing less 
than fifty dollars can reach it. 

And, finally, I would remind the people that 
the most prosperous times they ever knew was 
when there was no specie to be had. There 
never was a time, in any country, when the 
people prospered with a small volume of money. 
There never was a time when they failed to 
prosper with a large volume. Our own experi- 
ence in 1865 and 1866, 1 think, has demonstrated 
that fifty dollars per capita is necessary for the 
American people to do business successfully. 

We now have in circulation less than twenty- 
five. Let us place it back to fifty, and keep it 
at that ratio by constitutional amendment. The 
volume of mone}^ in circulation must not be 
enlarged or contracted, because a rise or fall of 
prices is sure to follow, and this is always dan- 
gerous to those who are not in the ring to know 
when the change is going to take place. 

Of the fifth clause in Plank Five it is only neces- 
sary to say that, under the glorious reign of Dr. 
Franklin's system of money, it was believed to 
be necessary for the prosperty and happiness of 
the people to forbid wealthy corporations to take 
out money in large amounts for the purpose of 



164 THE NEW ERA IN 

absorbing and controlling it. And it js safe to sa)^ 
that the wealthy corporations are no better now 
than they were then, and that the people need 
the same protection now that they did then. 

THE SIXTH PLANK IN THE NEW PLATFORM. 

I would suggest that the sixth plank in the 
new platform demand that the American people 
enact such laws as will protect voters from the 
tyranny of employers, North as well as South,, 
and insure the enforcement of those provisions of 
the constitution which guarantee a republican, 
form of government to every state in the Union,, 
and entitles the citizens of each state to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
states. 

The necessity for this plank in the new plat- 
form will be apparent to all thoughtful and well- 
informed people and especially to those who are 
familiar with the results of the investigations of 
a Senate Committee in Massachusetts and 
Rhode Island, and which reported to the Ameri- 
can Senate in April 1880 (see Part First, pp. 
79 to 92). That extensive bulldozing had been, 
carried on in Massachusetts and Rhode Island by- 
employers. 

It also reported a law upon the statute book 
of Rhode Ialand, which requires that a man shall: 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 65 

own, free from all incumberance, at least one 
hundred and thirty-four dollars worth of real 
estate to be entitled to vote. The report of the 
committee shows that more than twenty thousand 
citizens of Rhode Island, including ex-soldiers, 
ex-colonels and ex-congressmen even, who had 
been so unfortunate as to loose their property, 
were prohibited from voting by that restrictive 
statute. And although that committee had been 
called into existence by showers of petitions from 
the oppressed citizens of Massachusetts and 
Rhode Island, yet in its report, it cooly told those 
abused and downtrodden men, that the general 
government could not help them. And the repre- 
sentatives of the money power, composing our 
national legislature, tacitly endorsed their report. 

Believing, as I do, in the absolute, natural and 
constitutional right of every male citizen of the 
United States, who shall have attained the age 
of twenty-one years, and who is not convicted of 
crime against the laws, to cast his vote and to 
cast it for whom or what he pleases, and that 
too whether he has one cent of property or not. 

I would have the general government lay its 
strong hand on any State corporation or indi- 
vidual who shall dare to interfere with that right, 
and compel them to respect it; and thus guar- 
antee a republican form of government to every 
State in the Union, and equal privileges to each 



1 66 THE NEW ERA IN 

and every citizen thereof. Hence, I believe in 
the necessity for the sixth plank. And with this 
resolution I would close the list for the present. 

There is the railroad and transportation ques- 
tion, the telegraph monopoly, the eight-hour 
labor question, the female suffrage question, the 
temperance problem, the convict labor ques- 
tion, the Chinese immigration question, and 
scores of others. All important, perhaps, and 
all engaging the attention of the voting masses 
in a greater or less degree, but which can be 
reached with very great difficulty, if, indeed, 
they can be reached at all under the present 
regime. The capitalists can influence legislators 
to dally and pass obstructive laws. The one 
way to reach all questions concerning labor and 
the public welfare with dispatch and certainty is 
to place the governing power absolutely in the 
hands of the people, as the policy outlined in the 
preceding resolutions will do. There is not a 
rural school district in the United States in which 
every voter does not attend school meeting when 
the question to be settled is the appropriation of 
money to build a new school-house. 

Why is it that the people turn out and mani- 
fest so much interest on such occasions? It is 
simply because every voter feels that his family, 
his pride and his pocket is to be affected directly 
by his vote. This stimulates him to know the 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 67 

size of the proposed building, the kind of lumber 
to be used in its construction, its exact cost, where 
it is to be located, and whether or not there is 
jobbery about it. Then he votes understandingly 
guarding well his own interests. Such will be 
the relations of the people to the government 
and laws under the new system. The Congres- 
sional Recoi'ds in every postoffice will contain all 
the plans and specifications, together with full 
explanations from both the friends and enemies 
of the proposed measure. Then the people will 
discuss the whole subject and vote as their own 
interests dictate, not caring who proposed the 
law. Under this law party lines will fade away; 
the people will defy the wiles of the press and 
politicians to deceive them, and the rights of 
labor will be recognized by the law-making 
power. 

Now, why shall we not write a platform 
embodying these principles, and go before the 
people with it? They will endorse it, because 
they will see in it a perfect remedy for the wrongs 
they now endure, and always must endure, in a 
greater or less degree, while the government, so 
to speak, remains so far from them. The people 
will see in this platform a principle of education 
for the masses that, in a score of years, will place 
our glorious institutions upon a foundation against 
which cruel avarice shall hurl her minions in 



1 68 THE NEW ERA IN 

vain, and whose superstructure shall defy the 
tempests of despotic power forever. . 

The triumph of the principles of this platform 
will incorporate every voter with the state, and 
kindle every man's pride in his government. The 
nearer a man is brought to his government, and the 
more he has to do with it, the more he feels that 
it is his own; the more watchful he becomes, and 
the more resolutely he will defend it. 

Read this platform to the American people, 
and it will thrill them as did the Declaration of 
Independence in the war of the revolution. 

In that dreadful conflict with despotic power 
many a desponding patriot undoubtedly solilo- 
quised as follows: We have suffered wrong and 
had heavy burthens heaped upon us. We may 
fight on through blood and smoke and get some 
of those burthens removed. "But where is the 
security for the future? What is there to hinder 
the same power from heaping other burthens upon 
us ju§t as heavy as those we now endure. But 
when the Declaration of Independence came ? 
promising 'freedom from the British yoke 
forever, and placing the governing power 
in the hands of the American people, drooping 
patriotism raised her head, rejoiced in the 
hope of deliverance, and hurled back the 
invading hosts with the resolute will of injured 
freemen. The despotic power against which 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 69 

our fathers rebelled arose not from the masses 
of the English people. They had no desire to 
oppress America : but from a few rich lords and 
barons, into whose hands the earnings of the 
masses had been concentrated by a financial 
policy in the interest of capital. 

The same financial policy that created those 
lords and barons in England has created dupli- 
cates here, who glory in aping their lordly and 
avaricious prototypes across the sea. And the 
American people are again threatened; yea, 
they already feel the tyranny of wealth concen- 
trated in their own country. Already their 
backs bend beneath burthens heaped upon them 
by laws made in the interest of banking associa- 
tions and the fund-holding class. They do not rest 
easy under these burthens; they know that from 
some unjust cause poverty increases on one 
Kand and millionaires on the other. The result 
is here and there, and all around are heard mur- 
murings, sometimes threatenings. And now 
and then attempts are made to organize the dis- 
satisfied elements into a party for self-defense; 
first the Greenback party, then the Anti- 
Monopoly party, the Farmers' Alliance, etc.; 
but not one, nor all combined, lays down a plat- 
form of principles that covers the ground in con- 
troversy; not one has a policy the triumph of 
which will be a permanent remedy for the evils 



I70 THE NEW ERA IN 

complained of. Hence the people do not rally 
to their standards. They saw the Democratic 
party march to victory under Jefferson and do 
some noble work in the interest of liberty and 
good government. 

They soon, however, saw it begin to decline in 
virtue and direct its steps into paths that finally 
led it down — down to the very feet of the slave 
power. They remember well the tremendous 
effort it cost to dislodge that party, entrenched 
as it was in a hundred thousand offices. They 
saw the Republican party, after a desperate 
struggle, march to victory under Greeley, Lin- 
coln, Sumner, etc., and do noble work for liberty 
and humanity. Soon, however, they saw it 
begin to decline in virtue; down, down it bent 
its steps until it repudiated the principles of it s 
noble founders, closed its ears to the petitions of 
the people, and now lies prostrate at the feet of 
the money kings, who are more dangerous to 
American liberty than the slave power ever was, 
because they are more deceitful, less sectional 
and less bold in declaring their real purposes. 

Now, the people behold the singular spectacle 
of those two great parties without a single issue 
between them, and their leaders joining hands to 
control the government in the interest of capital 
In the strange dilemma necessarily growing out ( f 
such experience, I find the people anxious to right 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. I 7 I 

whatever is wrong, but they do not see how it can 
be permanently done. They say, " Our laws are 
made at Washington, and if there is any jobbery, 
the newspapers conceal it from us; it takes a long 
time to find out what is wrong. Then here is this, 
that, and the other political party; they all have 
reformatory principles in their platforms; if either 
of them should succeed, some of our wrongs 
would be righted, and some of our burthens 
removed. But where is our security for the 
future? The capitalists are ever on the alert and 
powerful. If we join a reform party, fight des- 
perately and win, how long will it be before the 
capitalists will influence our representative to 
heap other burthens upon us. And then we 
shall have the same ground to fight over 
again, with the same fearful odds against us. 
Oh, dear, capital will rule anyway, and we 
may as well consent to it now as to be eternally 
fighting for reform and never getting that that is 
permanant." 

To those desponding patriots read the platform 
of the new Republican party. They will regard 
it as the second declaration of American Inde- 
pendence. Hope will revive and lagging patriot- 
ism quicken her pace. There is patriotic energy 
enough in the American people to save them 
from the tyranny of capital and the country 
from the hands of the despoiler. It only needs 



I72 THE NEW ERA IN 

intelligent direction; that is all. To give it intel- 
ligent direction there must be a clear and well 
defined issue between those who want the gov- 
ernment controlled by capital and those who 
want it controlled by the people. The dividing- 
line must be so clearly marked that no politican, 
however adroit, can pretend to be on one side, 
while yet he is on the other, without being 
detected. Nor no part} T write a platform pre- 
tending to embody the same principle, and yet 
be capable of some other interpretation. 

The voting masses have been foiled and 
betrayed until their faith in the ability of single 
individuals or legislatures even, to resist the influ- 
ence of money and power, has become very weak. 
They have seen man after man elected to Con- 
gress on reform platforms only to betray the con- 
fidence of their constituancies. These results 
must follow. This dread uncertainty must ever 
attend the political movements of the people, 
while the officers of the government remain 
beyond their reach tor from two to six years, and 
our national legislature and the President are 
permitted to make laws without their consent. 
All this the people feel and understand. Hence 
they will work lazily, or at best, fight timidly for 
the success of any political movement that does 
not promise to place it beyond the power of any 
man, Congress or President to thwart their 
purpose. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 73 

The platform herein discussed, if successful, 
will place the American people beyond the danger 
of such accident by placing the veto power in their 
own hands, and giving them authority to remove 
those whom they have elected and paid to serve 
them, but who, nevertheless, prove unfaithful to 
their trusts. This policy will make the American 
people the soverign rulers of their own political 
destiny. The absolute judges and dictators of 
their own rights, and the unquestioned guardians 
of their own liberties. Fix the purpose and fire 
the great American mind with this grand idea 
and the people's march to power is certain, 
speedy and irresistible. 

No man admitting the right and capacity of 
the people to govern themselves can object to this 
platform. It contains the only principle that can 
give us a government " of the people, by the 
people, and for the people." I see no other way 
in which the people can obtain that glorious 
result, which should be the end and aim of all 
Republican government (viz.) : to have the same 
laws enacted which they themselves would enact, 
provided they could all assemble in one place for 
that purpose. I see no other foundation upon 
which American liberty can rest securely. 

The right key was touched by that wise and 
incorruptible patriot, Horace Greek}', while visit- 
ing Paris in 185 1. He was being shown those 



174 THE NEW ERA IN 

costly structures in the metropolis of France- 
The)' tower high in air, and look contemptuously 
down upon squalid poverty below. He knew 
that they had been built with the peoples 7 money. 
He remembered with pain that all that extrava- 
gant display of wealth was at the dictation of 
the rich, who, through class legislation, had har- 
vested the earnings of the poor. He wrote sub- 
stantially as follows: 

"All these costly edifices should be immediately 
turned into hospitals, galleries of art, etc., for the ben- 
efit of the poor, except, perhaps, Versailles, which 
should stand as a monument to the all-devouring pomp- 
of kings, and as a warning to the people not to entrust 
their destinies to those whose ambition it is to use them 
to pave their own way to more extended dominion." 

In 1851 the sentiment above quoted was 
appropriate for France, and, indeed, for any 
part of the old world, for all over those vast 
empires monuments like those spoken of by Mr- 
Greeley were standing thickly, testifying to the 
all-devouring pomp of the rich, and to the folly 
of the people in allowing that class to rule. But 
at that time only here and there one had reared 
its haughty head above the common level in the 
country of Washington; but to-day they cluster 
in our cities and dot the land from Vermont to 
Puget Sound. In those thirty eventful years, 
since Mr. Greeley visited France, class iegisla- 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. J 75 

tion has multiplied our millionaires by thousands 
and our poor by tens of thousands. Capital 
controls legislation, and our people are allowing 
themselves to be used as paving stones over 
which the rich are swiftly passing to more 
" extended dominion." 

Here is fit place for a sentence penned by 
Thomas Jefferson, one of the grandest figures in 
all history, and who, could he have had his way, 
would have had our liberties better guarded than 
they now are. The following are his words: 

11 I am not among those who fear the people. They 
and not the rich are our dependence for continued 
freedom." 

Mother earth never nurtured a purer patriot nor 
did the world ever know a wiser statesman than 
Thomas Jefferson. And that mighty product of his 
mind (the Declaration of American Independ- 
ence), sparkling with genius, aglow with patriot- 
ism and breathing thoughts that gave a nation 
birth, contains no grander sentiment than the 
one just quoted. It is the testimony of all history 
and the lesson of all experience. 

In Europe the rich govern and despotism reigns 
supreme. War after war surges through her 
lands, and untold millions of her most useful citi- 
zens have been forced to shed their blood to 
satisfy the ambition or capricious whims of her 



I76 THE NEW ERA IN 

m 

wealthy governors. The people do not want 
war, neither would they make laws to oppress 
themselves. And who can doubt, that should the 
governing power of Europe be transferred to the 
people, despotism would cease and wars be known 
no more within her borders. The people of the 
old world have long been oppressed and impov- 
erished, and the result is the average intelligence 
is far below what it would have been under a free 
government. Yet she has no nation that would 
not govern itself well and wisely could it have 
the opportunity. Poor sorrowing Ireland only 
needs a goverment of her people, by her people 
and for her people, to be a happy, prosperous and 
contented nation. 

Jefferson had read the tearful story of the 
oppression of the people of the old world by 
the rich. He had been among them, seen the 
effects of their cruelty, and meditated above 
the graves of their fallen victims. He had also 
seen much of the despotism of American slavery, 
which had been planted here by the rich against 
the wishes of the people. And from all this he 
was forced to the conclusion that the wealthy 
class could not be depended upon for continued 
freedom in our own country. But the lips of 
Jefferson were closed in death before the deep 
meaning of the words they had so grandly 
spoken were clearly revealed to his countrymen. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. I 77 

His eyes opened upon the scenes of another 
world ere they beheld the most striking illustra- 
tion of the cruelty of the rich, and the folly of 
allowing that class to rule, that history has ever 
recorded. Although he feared for the remote 
future, yet he had not dreamed that in less than 
forty years after his mortal remains should 
return to the bosom of our common mother, 
the vital truth he had proclaimed would be 
rewritten in letters of blood across the fair face 
of his beloved country. Yet such was the case. 
I doubt if a more generous and hospitable 
people can be found than the citizens of our 
Southern States. But they unwisely allowed the 
rich to rule there, and the result was that when 
the growing anti-slavery sentiment of the country 
bid fair to make that rule less absolute, the fratri- 
cidal dagger was raised, and eleven States were 
swept out of the Union by rich legislators against 
the wishes of an overwhelming majority of the 
Southern people. Then, for nearly four years, 
war and flame swept back and forth across the 
fair fields of the South, and every Southern 
breeze bore tidings of death through the land. 
The good Lincoln issued amnesty proclamations, 
which the Southern people would have gladly 
accepted and returned peaceably to their homes; 
but their rich leaders commanded the armies, 
and their motto was Rule or Ruin. And while 



I^O THE NEW ERA IN 

the capitalists of the South were inflicting such 
fearful wrong upon the American people by 
forcing the dread alternate of war or disunion, 
the more cowardly and more cunning capitalists 
of the North were bullying Congress, depre- 
ciating the greenback money, and devising the 
devilish schemes through which they doubled 
the cost of the war, paid the soldier fifty cents 
for each dollar he earned on the battlefield, and 
paid themselves one dollar for every fifty cents 
the}* invested in government bonds. (See testi- 
mony of Republican Congressmen, Part First.) 

The seeds of the American conflict were sown, 
nurtured, and the war itself inaugurated by the 
rich, but fought and paid for by the people. What 
an argument for placing the government exclu- 
sively in the hands of the people, who desire 
neither war nor slavery! Had the veto power 
been in the hands of the people from the founda- 
tion of the government, slavery would have died a 
natural death long before, and neither secession 
ordinance nor civil war would have cast their 
dark shadows upon American history. 

I am in receipt of a letter from my daughter, 
who feels a deep interest in the work I am endeav- 
oring to do for the people, but laments that the 
human kind are so constituted that riches make 
th^m cruel and despotic. She says that the peo- 
ple are patriotic and will contend earnestly for 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 79 

the right while the wrong hurts them / but no 
sooner does one rise to a condition of independ- 
ence than he is ready to oppress his less fortu- 
nate brother below. This painful and discourag- 
ing truth was never better illustrated than in the 
following, which I copy from that stalwart friend 
of the poor, The Irish World, dated September 
23, 1882: 

ANTI-LABOR LEGISLATION. 

" On the statute books of thirteen states are to be 
found so-called conspiracy laws which make it a crim- 
inal offence for American citizens to band together 
for the purpose of improving their condition. These 
laws have been passed for the express purpose of 
preventing any combination that will put Labor and 
Capital on anything like an equal footing. They are 
in themselves a convincing proof of the folly of sending 
to the Legislature those who have no sympathy with 
Labor. 

" The men who passed these conspiracy laws were 
in every case elected by the votes of those whom they 
betrayed at the dictation of Capital. * * * 

" Here, in New York, the new Penal Code goes into 
effect on the first of December. One of its sections 
gives the police the right of dispersing any working- 
men's meeting whenever they please. There are other 
sections just as inimical to the liberty of the citizen as 
this one. 'New York is a corporation-ruled State, and 
it is therefore not surprising that the Penal Code went 
through the Legislature with little or no opposition. 
Pennsylvania is another state in which corporation rule 



l8o THE NEW ERA IN 

exists. Here, too, we find laws that make it illegal for 
American workmen to take any means to defend them- 
selves against the grinding tyranny that would reduce 
them to starvation wages. 

" The practical Working of these laws are shown ir 
the case of Mr. Miles McPadden, who at this moment 
is under indictment for the part he took in assisting, 
the coal miners in Clearfield County to organize a strike 
We have before us a copy of the information or charge 
on which he was arrested. It is certainly a strange 
document, and as we read it, it seems incredible that it 
could be accepted in any court as evidence against an 
American citizen. The following extract will show the 
heinous offence Miles McPadden is guilty of and fot 
which he may sent to state prison : 

«* One Miles McPadden, not bein^j a resident of Clear- 
field County, nor a practical miner as deponent is 
informed, came to the said county about May i, 1882 ; 
that then the coal region was at peace, and no strike 
was talked of, and miners were satisfied with wage? 
paid (starvation wages) ; said McPadden began in May 
aforesaid to hold meetings of miners with the avowed 
purpose of organizing said miners for the purpose of an 
advance upon the wages then paid them by their 
employers; that when so made the said organization? 
was used by them and others for the purpose of an 
organized strike%mong said miners, and a demand by 
them for increased wages, extorting from their employ- 
ers of the same by such strike. 

"The head and front of Mr. McPadden's offence as 
shown by this document is that he attempted to show 
the underpaid miners of Clearfield County that they 
were not receiving sufficient wages from the mine 
thieves for the work they were doing. There is abund- 
ant proof that the wages were insufficient. But the 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 151 

fact will not save Mr. McPadden from conviction. The 
law under which he was arrested was expressly framed 
to meet cases where working men were underpaid. 
The framers of it foresaw that starvation wages would 
have a tendency to cause strikes, and to guard against 
such a possibility they made it a criminal offence for 
any one to hold meetings for the purpose of addressing 
American citizens on the subject how best to right 
their wrongs. 

"The arrest of Mr. McPadden shows whither we are 
drifting. It should arouse the workingmen not only in 
Pennsylvania but in every state in the Union to the 
importance of using the ballot to defend themselves 
against the conspiracy to make Labor a bonded slave." 

Trusting the reader will consider the import- 
ance of the above statement of The Irish World, 
I will direct his attention to the fact, that the 
capitalists, who procured such legislation, are 
themselves strikers in a much more important 
sense than Miles McPadden and his followers. 

The proprietors of coal mines band together 
and strike for a higher price for their coal and 
the people acceed to it. The bankers band 
together and strike for higher interest on money 
and the people are obliged to pay it. The rail- 
road corporations band together and strike for 
higher rates for freight and the people are forced 
to pay it by the million. Yet those strikers are 
not thrust into prison. I would also ask attention 
to the probable fact, that many of those capitalists 



182 THE NEW ERA IN 

once worked in mines and at the bench as com- 
mon laborers, and while thus employed, they 
undoubtedly at some time, felt the tyranny of 
capital and struck for an increase of wages. But, 
some by industr} 7 , some by inheritance, or some 
other favorable turn of fortune's wheel, but 
more by shear dishonesty, have become capitalists. 
They now turn upon their old comrades and 
seek to bind them to poverty with the tough 
cords of law. 

Now to what course shall we advise the 
laborer? To strike anyhow? Oh, no! That 
will only give him temporary relief at most. To 
seize the property of the rich? Oh, no! That 
is wrong in principle, destructive to good govern- 
ment and unworthy the thought of a free people. 
What then can he do to save himself? The 
success of the new platform will save him. First, 
it will give the people a cheap money and relieve 
the debtor class, including more than six million 
overtaxed and debt bound farmers of their 
burthens to the extent that they will greatly 
increase their purchases of manufactured goods 
of every description. Thus the demand for the 
products of all kinds of labor will be increased. 
This, of course, will intensify the demand for 
laborers, and prosperity must be theirs as it 
always has been when money has been plenty 
and cheap. 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 83 

Second. It will place the veto power in labors 
own hands and oppressive legislation will cease. 
Not one of those infamous enactments referred 
to by The Irish World, could have taken effect. 
No, nor would they have been proposed had the 
power to veto laws and to remove unfaithful 
servants been in the hands of the people. When 
the day comes, that before any law can take 
effect, it must stand the scrutiny of those who are 
to be governed by it, and the tenure of office for 
each public servant shall depend upon his faith- 
fulness to the interests of the people. He can be 
safely elected for any length of time, and the 
most despotic capitalist nor his basest tool will 
dare to propose a bad law. 

When this condition of things comes to exist, 
the people will no longer head their petitions to 

Congress. " We, the humble citizens of , 

humbly pray your honorable body," etc. And 
then that so-called honorable body pay no atten- 
tion whatever to their prayers. But their peti- 
tions will read: We, a majority of the legal 
voters in your congressional district, respectfully 
ask that you do so and so. And, my word for 
it, the petition will be heeded; else due notice 
will be given, an election held, and that baulky 
member will yield his seat to another. This policy 
will secure honesty and vigilance in public office, 
from president down to the smallest postmaster? 



184 THE NEW ERA IN 

and the people will have very few laws to veto, 
and very few officers to remove. Ten laws 
go upon our statute books for every one that 
ought to go there. Under the new system the 
law-making mania will die out, and the people 
will not be terrorized while Congress is in session. 

Through this policy, and none other, can this 
people save themselves and their posterity from 
the tyranny of capital. 

Reader, consider the following proposition: 
You have a farm of one million acres, manufac- 
tories of various kind, ships at sea, etc., to the 
extent that a large number of men are required 
to do your business. You are supposed to be 
the "boss," as the saying is. But you select, say- 
twenty men — we will call them law-makers — 
whose office it will be to make rules and regula- 
tions for the proper carrying on of this immense 
business. Some of these law-makers }*ou choose 
for two, some for four and some for six years, 
and give them full authority to make such laws 
as they see fit, and you consent to be governed 
by them. If they are oppressive, you cannot 
help yourself. You cannot repeal laws, nor 
remove the makers until their term expires- 
They can issue money to themselves at one per 
cent., and then compel 3*011 to pay ten per cent 
for it. They can join railroad corporations, and 
deed themselves your land. They can sell your 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 1 85 

ships and distribute your manufactured goods as 
they see fit. They can appoint as many clerks 
as they like, pay them such wages as the}' choose, 
and draw on you for the amount. They can 
raise their own salaries as high as they please, 
and pay themselves from your drawer. They can 
purchase worthless property at an enormous 
price, draw your check for the amount, and 
slyly divide the profits with the vendor. Now, 
sir, who is controlling this business, you or the 
law-makers ? 

And how long can you expect to remain in 
possession of your property? Does not all his- 
tory, all experience, and your own common 
sense tell you that such management will very 
soon ruin you ? Capitalists will tamper with your 
law-makers, your goods will disappear you know 
not where, your lands will find their way into 
the hands of wealthy corporations, and you be 
left a homeless wanderer upon the earth. Now, 
sir, this government is being carried on upon 
precisely this principle, and every day she is 
nearing her downfall. She contains within her- 
self the seeds of her own dissolution, and is fast 
going the way of all republics. Our theory of a 
representative government is beautiful, but prac- 
tically we are drifting towards a despotism. The 
interests of the people are not represented in the 
counsels of the nation, nor never can be for any 



1 86 THE NEW ERA IN 

great length of time under the present system 
Let us form a party upon a platform of prin- 
ciples that shall usher in a New Era in Repub- 
lican Government, and give the world a glorious 
example of "a government of the people, by the 
people and for the people." 

To do this the Constitution will need to be 
amended, and, since we have amended it once to 
secure the rights of the colored race, shall we 
not amend it again to secure the rights of both 
races, and save the Republic? 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



Our original intention was to publish both 
parts of this work in one volume only; but, feel- 
ing the urgent necessity of a cheap edition for 
the people, we have concluded to publish the 
second edition in pamphlet form, and sell it for 
Fifty Cents per copy. 

While this part is made, as far as possible, 
complete in itself, yet Part First contains the facts 
and arguments that show cleat ly "Whither 
are We Drifting as a Nation. 1 ' It is a 
wonderful book, and contains 730 pages. 

Price, $2.00. Agents wanted everywhere. 

Address, Geo. C. Hackstaff, 

Singer Building, cor. Fifth and Locust Streets, 

St. Louis, Mo. 



















%- $ 








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